Good morning, Calvary Chapel, Good morning.
It's a blessed morning today. Please turn in your Bibles to
the second chapter of the Book of Revelation.
Thank you so much, Sister, for that very warm greeting for our
visitors and also for those who are here and also for all of our
our announcements, which we have always have something going on
here at Calvary Chapel while you're flipping.
I just also want to send out a very warm welcome to those who
do listen from behind prison walls.
We never want them to think that we have forgotten them.
We thank you for joining us every every week or every
Tuesday or when or Wednesday, whenever it is that you are able
to tune in. We thank you and we welcome you
and we hope that you are blessed.
We pray that you are blessed by the word of God.
Please pray for our pastor Clark as he's on his way back from
vacation. They were suffering down there
at the beach. And yeah, I'm sure he was down
there with fear and trembling down there on the shore.
And he sends a picture every now and then, and it just looks very
beautiful, very, very calm. I can understand why he find so
much peace when he goes down to the beach.
It's a beautiful area where they are.
So please pray for them as they are on their way back and and
pray for everyone that you are aware of who are dealing with
any kind of infirmities, any kind of sicknesses, diseases or
whatever the case may be. Please lift them up as you know
who they are. Amen.
So let's pray and let's go into the word of Godfather.
We do thank you this morning once again as you tell us, Lord,
in your word, that those who diligently seek you, you reward.
And we thank you this morning, Lord, that we have come once
again to seek you. Not to seek man, not to hear
anything from me, but to seek You a Father.
We desire to hear your voice. We want to hear you speak to us.
You have the words of life, and we thank you, Father, that we
have life in you. I pray this morning, Lord, that
you have been satisfied. I've been pleased with our
praise and our worship. And I pray now, Lord, as we
worship you once again by the sitting under Your word, that we
are doers of the Word and not hearers only.
And we pray, Lord, that as we bring our weaknesses before you,
those areas where we need you, I pray, Father, that you will hear
us and meet us right where we are.
So today, Father, we just pray that everything that we do today
brings you glory. I pray that you manifest
yourself, your presence today as you promised us in your word,
Lord, that you are, You walk among the lamp stands which are
the churches. So, Father, we thank you for
your presence here with us today, and we ask that you would
be manifested. Let your power, your teaching
power, your hearing power, learning power, let it be
manifested today. Lord, take the scales off our
eyes that we may be able to see what it is that you're saying to
us. So Lord, may we love you more
dearly as a result of what we hear.
Maybe walk with you more nearly and may we see you more clearly.
We ask these things in the name of our Savior and our Lord.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen. So please put your finger or a
marker or something there. In the 2nd chapter of the Book
of Revelation, verse 12 is where we're going to start.
But I'm going to ask for your patience a little bit because
before we go there, I would like to kind of set the table in
another way. If we could go back to the Old
Testament, let's do a historical perspective of what it is that
we're looking to do or what we're looking to hear from
Jesus. So let's go back to the book of
Leviticus, and I want you to go please, to the 18th chapter of
the book of Leviticus. It's in the book of Leviticus
that we get the Levitical laws that we hear, the laws of
cleanliness and those things that God was giving to the
priests of Israel for sanctification, for cleanliness
and for worship. And where we're going right now
in the book of in the 18th chapter, it talks about worship
in the way of sexual morality or what's or what is approved by
God for sexual morality and what is not approved by God where
sexual morality is, is concerning.
And you ask, well, why is that important?
And when we get to the to the Church of Pergamus, you're going
to see why that's important. But right now, I just want to
set the table for how God sees how we worship him versus how
the Pagan societies worship their gods.
And he warns us and he tells us, don't worship me the way they
worship their gods. Don't be enmeshed in their way
of doing things because that is not what I desire of you.
So let's go to the 18th chapter, the book of Leviticus, and this
is what we're going to find. I'm going to just read the first
4 verses, 5 verses rather, and this is what it says.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of
Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God.
That is important. I am the Lord your God, not
their idols, not the gods that they serve.
I am the Lord your God. According to the doings of the
land of Egypt where you dwelt, you shall not do.
And according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am
bringing you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their
ordinances. Sounds like today, doesn't it?
Sounds so much like today, like he's talking to us right now.
You shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances to walk
in them. I am the Lord your God.
You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which
if a man does, he shall live by them.
I am the Lord. So now he tells us and he sets
this up and he says don't do the things that you saw in the place
where I am delivering you from. I'm bringing you out of Egypt.
And they saw a lot of Pagan worship in Egypt.
And he said, and don't do the things in the place he's warning
them before they get there. Don't do the things in the place
where I am bringing you to. Don't do what they do either.
All those things to him are an abomination.
And then from verses 6 through 20, he uses the word uncover
nakedness. He uses that phrase.
In fact, between the verses of 6 and 20, he uses that phrase 20 *
20 times. Do not uncover the nakedness of
Do not uncover the nakedness of. Do not uncover the nakedness of.
What does it mean to uncover the nakedness?
Uncovering nakedness means to engage in forbidden sexual
relations. And like I said, he mentions
that 20 times between the verses of verse 6 and verse 20.
And then the the sins that are mentioned in Leviticus verses 6
to 23 include all of the things that we as his people should not
engage in. But keep in mind, these are all
the things that the that the the Egyptians participated in and
these are all the things that the Canaanites are doing.
So this isn't just him just throwing stuff out like his
imagination. We're talking about things that
people are doing. And he says, and This is why the
lamb was so sick that it vomited you out.
It vomited them out because of the sick things they were doing.
And as soon as the sins were filled up, he made a decision to
send the Israelites in to clean these people out.
And he's saying I don't want you to make the same choices for
worship that they did. Now, those sins that he
mentioned between chapter verses 6 and 23, they include
fornication, adultery, incest, homosexuality, even beastiality.
And for those of you who don't know what beastiality is, it is
sex with animals. Some of these people in Rome
were marrying their animals. And then of course there was
child sacrifice thrown in there as well.
These were the sins and the worship of both the Egyptians
and the Canaanites. And God is saying, but not so
for you. So let's finish this now with
verse 30 and I'll read that to you to, to hear his kind of the,
the, the the cap on this to wrap this up.
He says, therefore, you shall keep my ordinances so that you
do not commit any of these abominable customs which were
committed before you and that you do not defile yourself by
them. I am the Lord your God.
I'm the Lord your God. So now let's Fast forward and we
get now to Pergamus and it's in pretty it won't take long for us
to see exactly why that was relevant because it was already
put in place back in the Old Testament of what is appropriate
worship of our Lord and what is not.
So here in the in the 2nd chapter of the Book of
Revelation verse 12, he says this.
In fact, I'm going to just read it all the way down and then
I'll come back and make comment. He says into the Angel of the
Church in Pergamus rite these things, says he who has A2 edged
sword. I know your works and where you
dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast to my name.
And you did not deny my faith, even in the days in which
Antipus, my faithful, was my faithful martyr, who was killed
among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against
you, because you have those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who
taught Bailey to put a stumbling block before the children of
Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual
immorality. Thus you also have those who
hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
Repent, or else I will come quickly.
I will come to you quickly, and we'll fight against them with a
sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes. I will give him some of the
hidden manner to eat, and I will give him a whitestone, and on a
stone a name written which no one knows except him who
receives it. Lord bless this word.
So he says here in verse 12, he writes this letter to the per
the Church of Pergamus, and just as he had with the Church of
Ephesus and the Church of Smyrna, he writes it in
correspondence to where they are located.
Now I don't have a pointer or anything, but on the map here
you can see where the where the Church of Patmos is located.
OK, well where Patmos is located, but if you look, I wish
I had a pointer. But if you look here where they
start with Ephesus, you'll see that John had to travel in order
to deliver these messages. He had to take the the post
route to get to these churches and he had to go north, start N.
So he went to Ephesus and then from Ephesus to Smyrna.
OK. And then it will be the next
church is going to be Pergamon, and that's where we are now.
And then he will descend to come S to Fair Tyra and to Sardis and
to Philadelphia and Laodicea. So that's the route, the postal
route, if you will, that John had to take.
But just like the other two churches, Christ identified
himself using one of the terms that he actually used in the
vision of John in chapter 1. Now in this in this particular
chapter, he says that he is he who holds or who has the two
edged sword. OK, so there's two edged sword.
This is a it is symbolic for judgment.
So let's talk a little bit about what what Pegamus, you know what
this Pegamus city was? What's what are they about?
What is what is Jesus saying to this church?
Why is he addressing the church in this way?
Well, Pergamus, or now it's modern day Bergamot, Turkey.
It was a capital province in Asia Minor.
It's a very wealthy and very powerful city actually, just
like Ephesus and like Smyrna was.
But it was known for its development of parchment, which
is for writing. It's like paper.
And this was after papyrus was banned from Egypt.
They used to write with papyrus, but then after the the demand
for for papyrus, after it declined, the Egyptians stopped
importing it and exporting it. So that's why Pergamus came up
with their own method for writing utensils or writing
paper, which is with parchment. It's a Cultural Center.
It's a Learning Center. And one of the things that they
boasted is that they actually had a library of over 200,000
documents. And all those documents, by the
way, were handwritten. All of them were handwritten.
They didn't have printing presses and typewriters and
things like that back then. So all these documents were
handwritten and they boasted about having all of this, this,
these, these volumes. I mean, it was a, it was a city
where it was universities. I mean, there was a cultural
city, very upscale kind of a city, but it was also the Center
for Pagan worship as well. So when Jesus says that I'm
coming with the two edged sword or, or, or, you know, he who
holds or who has A2 edged sword, he was basically saying that
although there are some things that you've done that are very
good, you have some there that I am coming to deal with.
There's some things in your church that I'm coming to deal
with. And, and I just wonder sometime
if he was writing a letter to this church, what would he say?
If he's writing a letter to the church today, what would he say?
What would he want to deal with with us?
And, and the way we must look at things is that we first examine
ourselves. When we examine ourselves then
as a body of believers, we become more, more like Jesus
Christ. So this sharp 2 edged sword, it
cuts both ways. As you know, as we know that
swords can cut and the things about this, this, this sword,
it's the mouth of God. It's the word of God that cuts
and it goes in and it cuts. It cuts below the surface.
It's below the surface. In other words, the things that
we see of each other on the outside, the word of God goes
deeper than that. I can fool with you.
There was a actually a, a worldly term that says we can
fool some of the people all the time.
You know, some of the time we can fool some people or
something like that. But see, we can't fool God at
any time, whatever it is. I'm sure I messed that up.
But we can't fool God at any time because God sees things
that we don't see. So, you know, there's two edged
swords that he wields and he uses the word sword here because
even the Pagan nations, Rome and you know, Rome, the Roman
government, they welded A swarm. They, you know, they had a sword
that they would use for justice or a sword that they would use
for to execute, execute, or a sword that they would use
against those who were in rebellion.
They used a sword to judge people.
But Jesus is saying here, don't be afraid of that sword, Be
afraid of my sword, because my sword not only will take your
physical life, but it will also could take your soul.
You can also take your soul. We know the scripture in Matthew
10 and 28. Do not fear those who kill the
body only, but all but those who can but but cannot kill the
soul, but rather fear him who was able to destroy both soul
and body in hell. So this sword is living, it's
powerful and it's sharper than any other sword.
The the word of God, it cuts deeper than anything else and it
cuts both ways. I mean, it cuts to correct us
and it also cuts to heal us. The word of God corrects us, but
it also heals us. So it cuts both ways.
Thank God for that, because we all you know, it, it it
performs. It's almost like that swore
performs surgery on our hearts when we need it most.
The thing that it goes deep into US, the IT looks at the areas
where we may not even be aware. You know, sometimes you can go
to a doctor and he can tell you got a problem that you weren't
even aware you had because it's happening so deep, may not have
even been symptoms of that problem yet.
But the Word of God is able to go in and be able to see those
things. And not only can He correct it,
but He can heal us. We all have things that we need
to be healed of in our hearts, and the Word of God is able to
do that. Thank you Jesus, for that.
Most of us are here now as a result of that.
Most of us follow Him because the result of what he's able to
do with His Word. So Jesus was warning this church
that, you know, judgment would be coming not only from the
earthly judgment. Don't just be afraid of them.
But the heavenly judgment is the is the one that would really be
concerning. But first he gives them a
condemnation. He gives a you know, he gives
them a compliment and he says to them, but you hold fast, even
though you are in the Satan's throne, you hold fast to my
name. And you did not deny my faith.
Even in the days in which Antipus was my faithful martyr,
Jesus is saying, and he's the one that walks in the midst of
the candles, candle stands, as we said earlier, he walks
through the churches. So he sees everything.
He says, I know your works. He sees everything.
He sees what we do. He hears what we say, but he
also knows our motives for why we're doing it or why we say it.
He knows our motives. And he acknowledged the fact
that even though you know, they have, you know, they live in
this difficult area of what is called Satan's throne and also
is called where Satan dwells. They live in this very, very
area was very complicated and very difficult to be a
Christian. But yet they held fast.
They held fast. They didn't deny him, nor did
they deny his faith. And he acknowledges that.
But he says, but if there is something I hold against you,
there's something I hold against you.
And he said the thing that I hold against you is that you
have hold to, you have held, you have some there who hold to the
doctrine of Balaam, who taught Bailet to put a stumbling block
before the children of Israel. Now, as we said before, Pergamus
was a very religious, but a very Pagan city.
So it expected, I mean, it had different gods and things of
that nature. And they wanted the Christians
to submit to these gods. I think we talked about back in
the the Church of Smyrna how they wanted the Christians to,
yeah, it's OK if you worship your God.
But once a year, I want you to come and write just a pinch of
incense to our gods. Just compromise.
Once a year write that you know that, that that pinch of incense
and all you got to do is just say Caesar is Lord and you're
done and you're done. Nobody messes with you.
You keep your life, we won't persecute you.
Well, a lot of these people that were in the church would not do
that. They would not submit.
They would not submit, they would not compromise even that
one time a year. Now there are many gods, many
temples and pergamus that had that, that that served God.
They were erected for the purpose of worshipping their
gods. They had Greek and Roman gods,
including Diagnosis, Athena, Demeter, and even Zeus who was
the the chief of all Greek gods. He was the chief.
In fact, he actually had a huge altar that was erected and
worldwide, a world known altar that was erected just for him,
for Zeus. In fact, that it's no longer
there in Pergamos. It was torn down, but when they
did is that they took the remains of that and they took it
to Berlin, Berlin, Germany. And it's now in a museum there
in Berlin. It's called the Pergamus Museum.
So people can still go from all over to see.
It's massive. And it was actually called one
of the wonders of the ancient world, one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world. It was huge and most people
believe that. That's why they referred to
Pergamus as Satan's throne. It was like that altar was the
altar of Satan is where Satan dwelled.
So Pergamus built all these different temples.
Even they they even built a temple to to worship their
emperor Caesar at that particular time.
They're one of the only cities who did it, but Pergamus also
had the temple of Askapalis. I'm sorry, wait a minute.
Let me get it right. Askalapius.
Askalapius is a very uncommon word to say, but Askalapius is
one of the Greek gods there and he was the God of healing and
the God of medicine. They actually had a university.
They are named after him. And the weird where, I'm sorry,
the different thing about this temple of Ascalapas, people will
come from all over the world who are suffering from different
diseases and different sicknesses.
And they would come and they would be allowed to actually
sleep on the floor of the temple.
They would sleep on the floor of the temple all night long.
And it would be sleeping total darkness.
And then they would release non venomous snakes, non venomous
snakes, these what they consider to be harmless snakes.
And then the tradition was, or the belief was, is that if over
the course of the night, if a snake would crawl on you or in
some way rub up against you, they believed that that was the
God Askalapius touching you and you would be healed.
I'd rather have the disease. That's a bit much, but they
believe that in fact, even today, even today, the sign for
medic for the for medicine is a staff with a serpent wrapped
around the staff. And the reason why is because
that was the sign, that was the symbol at the University of
Ascalapius. And we still have it today.
We still have it today. So just shows you what kind of
influence those kind of things have even on the world or even
on the world today. We all know that Jesus is the
true healer. We all know that he's the true
healer. He's the great physician.
He can do, you know, these folks can do all those things, but
nobody heals like Jesus Christ because not only can he heal the
body, he can heal the soul. He's a great physician, the
great healer. And you know, it's interesting.
They, they have all these idols that they have and they create
all these idols. They give them mouths, but they
can't speak. They give them ears, but they
can't hear. They even give them feet, but
they can't walk. They can't come to you if you
call them. There's people that have called
him all night long, cut themselves.
You know the story with the prophet who had the prophets a
bell on the mountain and he's they were calling on their gods
all night long, cutting themselves and doing all kind of
crazy that the guy couldn't come.
Bell couldn't come. He couldn't show up because he's
not real. He's not God at all.
There's only one true God and that's our God, the one that we
serve, the one that we worship, call him Jesus Christ, the one
true God. Thank you, Jesus.
So anyway, they they they they have this, you know, he says I
have this against you have some there hold to the to the
doctrine of Balaam. So what was the doctrine of
Balaam basically? And we can go back and look at
the story. I'll just summarize that.
There's no way I'm going back in the book of numbers and that's
where it is. And we can take a look at this
story of Balaam. But basically what he was saying
there is in in the story is that the Israelites as they were on
their way, coming from Egypt on their way to Canaan, they came
across the came across the land of the Moabites in the Moabite.
The Moabite king Balik, who was the mobile king at that
particular time, he decided that he was going to curse these
people. He was afraid of them.
He had heard about everything that the Lord had done for them.
So he was going to curse them because he was afraid of them.
And and, and as they were coming closer, he went out and he hired
Balaam, who was a sorcerer basically, but he was called a
prophet and he wanted Balak Balaam to curse the children of
Israel. But the and he offered him a lot
of money in order to do it. And the word warned Balaam and
said don't go. But he ended up going anyway
because he was greedy. He had the the issue of greed.
Money was his God, so he went anyway.
And and of course we heard, we know about the, the story, how
the donkey spoke to him and tried to tell him that look man,
you in danger, you need not to, to do this.
But anyway, the Lord did let him go because God had a purpose.
He had a, he had a plan. He knew what was going on, but
he also knew Balaam's heart. So he let him go.
And of course, Balaam tried to curse the children of Israel,
but every time he would open his mouth to try to curse him, a
blessing will come out. And and, and Bailey quite often
was getting really frustrated about this.
So wait, wait, wait a minute. I hired you and I offered you
all this money for you to curse this people and all you're doing
is blessing them. Why?
What's, what's going on? And Balak said Balaam says,
look, I'm sorry, I can't do anything to these people.
Now I'm giving you the short version this please go back and
read it. It is in the book of numbers,
chapters 22 through 25. And you can also see the, the,
the end of it in chapter 31. So this is just a summary that
I'm giving. So Balaam said to them, look,
I'm sorry, but I can't curse who the Lord blesses.
He understood the power of God and he said you never, never,
never beat them this way. You won't destroy these people.
Try to come against them in this way, but if you want to destroy
them, get them to destroy themselves.
So he convinced Balak basically to take the young Moabite women
and they will go and invite the young Israelite men to their
sacrifices and to their worships services.
And the one young women would tell them, they'd say, look, the
way we worship our gods is that we eat a bunch of foods that we
offer to them and we have sex. That's how we worship our gods.
And of course these young men gave in and they went and they
got deceived and they ended up defiling, defiling themselves
with these Moabite women. And of course it angered God and
you know, he ended up putting a plague there and it and it
killed thousands. But this is the interesting
thing. Satan understood that
persecution and trying to take down the church by violence
never, never worked. The church always gets stronger
in persecution. The church grows in persecution.
It doesn't get weaker. It encourages us.
When people are faithful unto death, that encourages us.
It doesn't discourage us. So Satan understood we can't
beat them that way. We got to join the church.
Let's join them. Let's join the church, and let's
bring in a seductive doctrine to convince them to defile
themselves. Think about that.
So today we got churches that
look like the world because they've been convinced that it's
OK to sin, it's OK to do all these things as long as you
profess Jesus Christ and, and, and you call him your Lord, that
you agree that he is the Son of God, long as you say all those
things, you can live any way you want to.
And we see that happening. We see that happening.
But they understood that you can't beat them from without.
Isaiah said no weapon formed against you shall prosper, and
every tongue that rises up against you in judgment you
meaning God will condemn every tongue.
But if we allow ourselves to be deceived and to take on this
doctrine of balaam, which is what Jesus saw in the church,
there's some of you. He didn't say all of them.
He said there's some of you who are holding to the doctrine of
Balaam and you're calling yourself Christians.
You're saying you believe, but yet your life is showing
something totally different and you think it's OK, You can sin
as much as you want as long as you think that you are
professing the right things. That's why Matthew 7 to 21,
Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will
shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will
of my Father, he who does the will of my Father.
Luke 6 and 46 says Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord,
and do not do the things I say? You don't keep my commandments.
If you love me, you keep my commandments.
So this doctrine of Balaam is basically, it's a it's a
doctrine of compromise and assimilation with the world.
And he says some of you have gone with this.
So some of the members were being called out for this
difference between what they professed to believe and what
they know to be true and what they actually practically lived
out. Now let me say this.
As Christians, as growing Christians in the Lord, none of
us are perfect. None of us have reached the
level of total sanctification. None of us are.
We are not sinless. We're not that.
We haven't reached that and we won't on this side of heaven.
We won't until Jesus come back. We're going to struggle, we're
going to fall, we are going to sin.
But that gap that we have of what we know to be true and what
we believe to be true and what we're practically living out as
a Christian, it should not be getting wider and it should not
stay the same over time. It should be getting smaller.
That's called the process of sanctification.
It gets smaller. We should we are, we are looking
to look more like Jesus Christ, look in the more like Jesus
Christ. If we have a picture of Jesus
Christ And you know, when you get a, some kind of a product
and, and you have all the pieces of that product laid out, you
got a picture of what the end result is supposed to look like.
But you looking at them pieces and it don't look like that.
So you have to go to the directions and allow the
directions to help you to build this thing.
And the more you follow the directions, the more it begins
to look like the picture. And that's us.
We are a bunch of broken pieces coming to Jesus.
We're a bunch of broken pieces. And daily, as we stay in the
Word of God, as we come and sit under his word, as we pray, as
we become disciples of Jesus Christ, eventually we should
look more like the picture Jesus Christ.
We should look more like Him, not less, shouldn't stay the
same, but that's the process of sanctification.
It should not get wired. That gap should not be wider.
It should be narrowing. But then he also said that you
also have the doctrine of the Nicolatans.
There in that place you got the doctrine of Nicolatans.
You now there's the deeds of the Nicolatans and there's the
doctrine of the Nicolatans Now the deeds of the Nicolaitans, he
says are are those that believe where they promote idolatrous
behavior, sexual immorality, self indulgent lifestyle is
basically what it promotes and it blends the Christian faith
with Prague with with Pagan worship and Pagan practices.
We just talked a lot about looks a lot like the doctrine of
Balaam, but the doctrine of the Nicolatans is something a little
different. And this is the thing that Jesus
said He hates the doctrine of the Nicolatans.
And in the doctrine of the Nicolatans, it is believed that
the Nicolatans have come in and introduced this ideology in the
church or this doctrine in the Church of hierarchy.
It's the doctrine of hierarchy where you have all these
branches of, you know, bishops and now they got people call
themselves apostles and bishops and then pastors.
I mean, it's just like a, a big, you know, branch of hierarchies,
like something you can put on the war chart or something.
So you got the clergy up here and the people down here, and
Jesus never meant it to ever be that way, never meant to be that
way. This shouldn't be a split
between purge, between clergy and the people.
Clergy are seen as being above the people.
Now here in our church, we have pastors or elders, we have
deacons, we have ministry leaders and we have ministry
volunteers or people who work in ministries, but no one is above
anyone. No one is above anyone.
We may have different functions, we may have different callings
which come with different responsibilities, but no one is
above anybody. In this church, the org chart is
Jesus Christ. And then all the rest of us.
That's the org chart in this church.
It's Jesus Christ that did this. All the rest of us, no one is
above anybody. No one is special.
We don't, you know, the, the, the leaders here don't sit up
here and look down on you. The leaders here aren't dressed
in garb that separate us and let people know that he's somebody
different. He's somebody special.
He's someone of authority. We don't have that here.
We don't have special seats. We don't look to be served.
We serve.
That's what that's what Jesus said.
I, you know, even the Son of Man.
Did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a
ransom for many. Jesus came to serve.
The disciples didn't wash his feet, He washed theirs.
The disciples didn't feed him, He fed them.
He came to serve. And that's what we should be
doing as a body of believers. We look to serve each other.
We look to be a blessing to each other.
Thank God for that. So that's the doctrine that they
hated. And he says here, you know, and
we have to be aware of something.
And this is, and this is one of the most important things in
this whole, in this whole passage is the fact that not
only should not only should the people be concerned who are, you
know, taking part or compromising in the doctrine of
Balaam or the doctrine of Nicolaitans, but he's also
speaking to the leadership here and saying you have them there.
That means you should be holding them accountable.
We can't tolerate sin. You can't tolerate sin in the
church. You can't allow, you can't turn
the deaf eye to sin. If you see it, you lovingly deal
with it. We're told in the word how
that's done. We lovingly deal with it.
We acknowledge it and lovingly deal with it.
When Paul saw sin in First Corinthians with the Corinthian
church, he told them, he said, look, you're just allowing this
thing to just happen and you're bragging about it, you're
boasting about it, but you need to deal with this.
This person is this person is sleeping.
This man is sleeping with his, with his stepmother, his wife's,
his father's wife. He's sleeping with her and you
guys aren't doing nothing about it.
He dealt with it. We have to lovingly hold each
other accountable. That's how we grow in Christ
Jesus. You know, it's not about just us
pointing fingers at you or you just pointing fingers at us.
We have to help each other. We don't judge people.
We judge conduct. We judge conduct.
The Lord is the one that judges people.
That's how we help each other. But so he says to you, repent.
He says to them, repent, repent. He said, well, I'm going to come
quickly and thank God for his repentance.
That's the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God is his repent
is when we, he offers us repentance, he gets that's his
mercy, his grace and his forgiveness.
It doesn't matter what we've been doing or how long we've
been doing it. You know, particularly for
people who have not given their hearts or their lives to Christ
Jesus. You may think, well, he don't
want me. He would never accept somebody
like me. It doesn't matter what you've
been doing or how long you've been doing it.
We can turn from it. We can repent.
And his arms are open to you just like He's open to anybody
else. He says, repent or I will come
quickly. He offers His grace and His
mercy, but he says if they don't repent and he's coming quickly
and he will judge them. And this is not that judgment at
the last day. This is judgment like I'm coming
now and I'm judging this. What I'm seeing.
I'm going to judge what I see. There's going to be
consequences. And again, you look at the
judgment of Roman, of the Roman sword versus the judgment of the
sword of Jesus Christ. But because of his love and
mercy, he gives us this word and tells us to examine ourselves
and repent. If we need to repent, repent.
That's the loving thing about the Savior that we serve.
And then he says here in verse 17, and we're coming in
foreclose. Praise and worship team, come
forward, please. We're coming in foreclose for
landing. I like to say we're coming in
for a landing. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes
to him who overcomes, to him who overcomes, to him who you know,
hears this word allows that word to work in their heart.
They discern what it is that the Lord is saying to them, and then
they repent and they turn from that word.
They overcome He's. I'll give some of the hidden
manna. The hidden manna, we know them,
you know, as, as you know, at the time that the Israelites
were coming from Egypt and was going to Canaan, the Lord gave
them manna to eat, but that manna didn't sustain.
They couldn't sustain their life.
It was temporary. They ate it.
They were fine for a while, but then they had to eat again
because that manna didn't sustain their life.
But this manner that he's talking about, it's that
spiritual manner, this, that it's the food that comes down
from heaven. Jesus Christ is the bread of
heaven, and he's given to us for eternal life.
It doesn't just satisfy us for a minute.
You know, the world has nothing that satisfies us totally
nothing. Only momentary gaps of, you
know, satisfaction for a while, but then you're looking for it
again. And sin is insatiable, sin is
insatiable, lust is insatiable. All these things are insatiable.
You can't satisfy them. Only Jesus satisfies.
Only Jesus. I mean, think about it.
The things that we dealt with in our lives, the things that we
did in our lives never really satisfies.
But Jesus, he filled that void that was empty, that nothing
else could. And He still does it for us.
He still does it for you. So I'll give you that, that
hidden manner. And then he and then he says,
and not only will I give you the hidden manner that comes from on
high, he said, I will also give you a white stone.
Now in ancient times, the white stone had a couple different
meanings. One of the meanings was is that
in the ancient courts, they had stones, either whitestone or a
Blackstone. And if you were, whatever it is
you were accused of, when they went to determine your outcome
or determine the verdict, they would either give you a
Blackstone, which means you're guilty and you're going to be
sentenced, or Whitestone, which means you're acquitted.
Well, Jesus says I'm going to give you a whitestone.
So that means in heaven we're already acquitted of all the
sins that we've been accused of. We're not guilty of those
things. We've been justified just as
though we had not sinned. Those things are thrown into the
depths of the sea, the whitestone.
And then the other meaning of the whitestone is that it's a
victory. The victory, for example, back
in the ancient games, Roman and Greek ancient games, the victory
if you were a victor of these Olympic Games, or if you were,
you know, if you were considered a victor, they gave you a
whitestone. And that whitestone gave you
entrance into the victor's feast.
You were able to use that white stone like a pass that you could
use to get into the victor's feast.
It identified you as being a victor.
Well, Jesus said, I'll give you a whitestone.
And that whitestone that he's talking about giving acquits us
of all the sins that we have committed and we're no longer
seen as guilty. We have been acquitted and we
can come in to the feast, you know, the heavenly feast, which
is better than any feast that's here in the earth realm.
And then lastly, he says, I'm going to also, there's going to
be a name on that whitestone, a name that no one else knows but
you. This name's identify us
identifies us with the Savior. That name called that name
identifies us as going from earthly shame to heavenly honor.
I remember my neighborhood where I grew up and we all had
nicknames. I ain't telling you mine, but we
all had nicknames. And you know, nicknames were
cool because it, it meant that you were accepted in a lot of
the neighborhoods, you know, you know, acceptance was important
because it meant you having a good day or a bad or a lot of
bad days. But everybody had a nickname.
So, so Jesus is saying, along with the new heaven and the new
earth, you're going to have a new name.
Isaiah 62 and two said, you shall be called by a new name,
which the mouth of the Lord will name.
Now back in history and history of the of the Bible, we know
that once people had encounters with the Lord, they received a
new name. Abram who who whose name meant
the exotic father became Abraham meaning the father of nations.
Sarai Maine meant Princess, but it became Sarai which means
noble woman. Jacob it meant trickster or
supplanter, but his name became Israel, which means one who
struggles with God, Simon. He even got a new name the Simon
meant he who hears, but it became Peter, the rock or the
stone. And then of course Saul, whose
name meant asked or prayed for and it became Paul, which means
small, little or humble. So we all get a a new name when
we come into the Kingdom. So what would our name be?
Because see, this name is an identification of your character
in Christ Jesus, something in Christ Jesus that you display.
What would our name be? What would our name be?
And how do we, if you think about even now, you know, how do
we progress in our life in Christ?
How big is the gap between what we believe, what we know to be
true and what we're living practically?
And we all have to ask that question for ourselves.
And if we are not where we think we should be in Christ Jesus, we
can go deeper in Him. We can go deeper in Him.
Everybody is not going to be on the same level in Christ Jesus,
but we can go deeper in Him. We can become more like Him as
we seek Him more. And that's my prayer for me and
for the the body of believers in this house is that every day we
are seeking to go deeper in Christ Jesus to look more like
him that our that we would have. We would be examples in conduct,
we'd be examples and in Word, we'd be examples in faith and in
we'd be examples in purity. As we work, as we allow the Holy
Spirit to work in us, this can happen.
This can happen. So I just love it when I see
people praying with each other. I love it when I see people
encouraging each other. I love it when I see people
calling each other and hanging out with each other.
And you're talking about the things of the Kingdom because
you're sharpening iron and sharpening iron and we're
becoming to look more and more like Jesus.
You're helping me look more like Jesus, and I'm helping you look
more and more like Jesus Christ. What a blessing.
So as we prepare for our, our communion, we know that there
are things that have tried to come into the church and we as a
body of believers have to protect each other from
doctrines that are dangerous from people who would try to
come in and, and bring something ungodly into the body of Christ.
We all have to be men who are on the gate that are on the fence.
You know, we're looking, we're looking and, and, and watching
and listening for what we're hearing, what people are
speaking. And we have to be able to
determine what's of the Lord and what's not.
And we have to do this for ourselves.
We have to do it for our families.
We don't want to feed bad food because bad food makes you sick.
It's the good food that comes from Christ that heals, that
causes us to grow, that causes us to be more like Him.
So we must be vigilant first of all of ourselves, and then let's
be a blessing to other people. So, Father, we thank you for
this word and we pray, Lord, that it has came right into the
core of what it is that you want us to understand about it, Lord.
Father, we don't just want to be Christians in name only, but we
want to be Christians in the things that we do in our works,
in the way, in our thoughts. We want to be Christians in our
words that we speak, Lord, and we know, Father, that we have a
long way to go to reach the level of sinlessness.
We will never get there in this life.
We have a long way to go, Lord. We we have a long way to go to
look like You. We're dealing with our flesh
every single day. But we thank you that you came
to show us the way. You demonstrated what it is that
we should look like. So in the night in which Jesus
was betrayed, he took the bread, and after he gave thanks, he
broke it. And then he said, take this and
eat it, And as often as you eat it, eat it in remembrance of me.
Eat it in remembrance of My word and remembrance of what you saw
in my life, and remembrance of how I worshipped, eating in
remembrance of Me, eating remembrance of the sacrifice
that I made for you on Calvary. As often as you eat it, eat it
in remembrance of Me. And then he took the cup, and
after supper he said, this is My blood in the new covenants.
Mine is the new covenant in my blood.
So drink this. This blood is the blood that was
sacrificed. This is the blood that ran down
from Calvary, This is the blood that I shed for the sins of
many, for each and every one of us, and for those who will be
coming into the sheepfold. So as often as you drink this,
drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, we do show the Lord's death till he
come. Amen.
The author is open for anyone who would like to come up and
pray. Lord bless you.