This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
The church had a problem with compromise.
The church was known to be dealing with idolatry.
There was pressures internal within the church itself.
As they were worshipping, they were worshipping not any God,
but they were worshipping. Idols Apollo, the sun God, was
established in this particular city, and what happened was, as
the church was endeavouring to do the things that it was
supposed to do, they allowed false teachers.
To be in the church. False teachers have always been
a problem in the church. Whether modern day or the early
church era, there have always been people seeking to
capitalize on the body of Christ for personal gain.
We are reminded that the ultimate authority of the church
is Christ. Whatever pastor or preacher you
may have. Pastor Clark gives insight into
this church mentioned in Revelation as a lesson to us to
be critical of those who would stray from Scripture and lead us
astray from the gospel of Jesus. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
Book of Revelation Chapter 2 with today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace. Revelation chapter 2, verse 18
through 29. And to the Angel, the church in
Thyatira, right these things, says the Son of God, who has
eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass.
I know your works, your love, service, faith, and your
patience. And As for your works, the last
are more than the first. Nevertheless, I have a few
things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who
calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants, to
commit sexual immorality and eat things, sacrificed idols.
And I gave her time to repent and her sexual immorality, and
she did not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a
sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great
tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
I will kill her children with death.
And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the
minds and the hearts. And I will give to each one of
you according to your works. Now to you I say, and to the
rest in Thyrotyra, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have
not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you
no other burden, but hold fast what you have till I come.
And he whoever comes and keeps my works until the end, to him I
will give power over the nation's.
He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
They shall be dashed to pieces like the Potter's vessels, as I
also received from my father, and I will give him the morning
star. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches.
This particular church, Thyatira, the 4th church we're
studying now in the Book of Revelation, is given the longest
letter of all. The churches that we've studied
so far and the city of. Thyatira, about 40 miles.
Southeast of Pergamus, which is a church.
We studied about last week. This particular church is
involved with a lot of issues that churches shouldn't be
involved with at all these centers in false teaching.
That's what happens whenever churches begin to fall apart.
Doesn't matter how many people are there, how few, or how many,
whenever the Church begins to deviate from the teachings.
Of the word. Of God and begins,
unfortunately, to make things up as they go along the church then
begins to become a problem to the people that go to.
The church this particular church in in.
General, you might have remembered.
Back in Acts chapter 16, in your studies of the Scripture, this
city is mentioned regarding a certain woman named Lydia, the
first convert in the city of Thyrotaira.
She's mentioned in the book of the Acts, and it says that the
Lord opened her heart to heed and listen to the things that
were spoken to by Paul. And when she and her household
were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have judged me to
be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.
And so she persuaded us. And that.
Was the beginning of the church in Thyatira the Lydia.
Seller of purple. The city itself was a
manufacturing port. Also a military city.
And of all these cities that we're studying right now in the
Book of Revelation, this church again has received the largest
letter. In this city, there's a town
that people are making a living by the Guild.
In order to make the living, you had to be part of a.
Guild or you couldn't work. A Guild was like a trade union,
a trade association, and in order to make your livelihood
you had to belong to these guilds.
But the problem at that time or the conflict at the time was
that the church was being tempted to compromise its
convictions. And this is what the John is
addressing as Christ is speaking to him regarding this church in
Revelation. The church had a problem with
compromise. The church was known to be
dealing with idolatry. There was pressures internal
within the church itself. As they were worshipping, they
were worshipping not any God, but they were worshipping.
Idols Apollo, the sun God, was established in this particular
city, and what happened was, as the church was endeavoring to do
the things that it was supposed to do, they allowed false
teachers. To be in the.
Church and false. Teachers were like teaching
things that weren't part of. The Apostles doctrine or the
foundation of the Teachings of Christ and the Church, instead
of dealing with the false teaching they were allowing.
These things to go along, they weren't saying anything.
They weren't mentioning anything about it.
They weren't stopping it. And the responsibility that the
church has myself as a pastor. And Elder.
And Howard and Rick. Is that?
There can't be false. Teaching in the church, we could
be doing 90% of the things right and 10% wrong.
And as I said, the rat poison is always 2% arsenic and 98% weak,
and that's what causes rat poison to be lethal.
So when the church has a little leaven, a little sin, a little
impurity, it begins to corrupt the whole church.
If I'm living a double life and I'm walking in immorality in my
private life, and then I'm coming.
Here preaching you and. Even though I might sound right
and I'm teaching. Doctrine and all these.
Things. There's no power in what's being
said because it's being filtered by delusion and deception and
morality and impurity. And the same thing when you come
to church on Sundays, you want to come with your hearts pure
before the Lord. You don't want to bring in the
world and the lust of the world into the body of Christ.
When we take the Lord's Supper, we sit down and we take it to
have our hearts purified together, don't we?
We all need to be purified. We're out in the world all week
and we're rubbing shoulders with all kind of stuff and we hear
things and we see things and many of these things obviously
enter into our heart and they cause.
Us to be cold. And lukewarm and lack attention
to the things of God. And what happens then?
It begins to invade our families and our marriages and our
households and our. Community and those we.
Work and live with. And so the importance of the
church having no compromise. Now, some of us are dealing with
struggles, I'm sure, in our own lives, personally.
Sometimes we have business. Dealings or relationships with
certain people and we feel that we sometimes shouldn't say what
we really need to say because if we did, it might affect the
business deal or it might affect the relationship, or something
might not go right. Or maybe we could lose our job.
And maybe the boss is asking you to do something you know is
morally unacceptable and against your convictions and you're
having struggle. You're thinking, well, Lord, if
I don't do what he tells me to do or she tells me to do, then I
could lose my job. What do I do, Lord?
Well, the Lord would always have us do what he tells us to do,
right? But we all have a tendency at
times to compromise, don't we? And we need to step back and
say, Lord, I need to do what's right no matter what the cost
is, even if it costs me my job, it costs me my house, it costs
me my livelihood. Because ultimately, Lord, you're
the one that provides for me. It's not man, it's you.
And we all struggle with believing that at times.
It's like the old phrase Lord, I believe helped my unbelief.
We want to trust God and we want to follow Him, but sometimes we
compromise and we need. To repent of compromise and we
need to ask the Lord to free us from the fear of.
Man and the fear of the culture. And that the one thing we want
the most is to do what's pleasing in his sight.
So these self professed prophets arise here.
He's speaking to this church and it says these things, says the
Son of God, this. Is the only instance in this
Book of Revelation that this phrase Son of God is used, and
it's used to refute the Son God Apollo, who they worshipped as
the God of their culture? And Jesus is clearly delineating
that he is the Son of God. He has eyes like a.
Flame of fire. And his.
Feet are like brass. You know when Christ, Christ.
Is in our midst today. He's here.
He is so focused on you and me because He loves us.
His eyes are so intent upon your heart that He's searching and
moving by spirit and through His Word and through worship and
through the Lord's Supper to separate the stuff in our heart
that needs to be taken away and taken out.
It's like an infection that needs to be excised from our
hearts. Sin we think isn't that big of a
deal sometimes, but the Bible says a little leaven, a little
sin ruins the whole body. That's why David was so intent
on saying, Lord, search me and know my heart, try me and know
my thoughts, and see if there's any wicked way in me, and leave
me in the way everlasting. He was so focused upon purity
after he fell into sin. He did terrible things like many
of us have, and yet God in His mercy forgave him and restored
him and renewed him, didn't he? But David wasn't the same man
after that fall. He was so aware of his heart and
his propensity to sin against the God who loves him.
And so in his prayers he said, search me Lord, and know my
heart. He wasn't saying search other
people, get them straightened out, deal with them.
No Lord, search me, know my heart, know my thoughts and see
if there's any wicked way in me and leave me in their way
everlasting. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my
strength and my Redeemer, That that would be our prayers as we
worship God, as we come before him in prayer and our private
lives, that we're asking God to change our hearts and to purify
us. Christ is seeing everything and
he wants to eliminate everything and purify us so that we don't
have to. Stand in judgment before his
throne one day and give an account for ungodliness.
The judgment seat of Christ is a judgment for believers.
The great White Throne judgment is a judgment for the unsaved,
The loss. If you're a Christian, you won't
be at the great White Throne judgment.
But if you're a Christian, you will be at the judgment seat of
Christ. And the Bible says you will give
an account for every idle word and every corrupt deed that you
hadn't repented of. And so today we ask God to
purify us and to cleanse us so that all of us can stand in that
judgment and hear well done, good and faithful servant enter
into the joy of the Lord. And so Christ, as he looks with
these eyes that are so pure and so holy and so perfect, he's
searching the heart of this church and our church.
As well here today. It says his feet are like fine
brass, he says. I know your works, your love,
your service, your faith, your patience.
And As for your works, the last or more than the first, this
church in comparison to. Ephesus, you know, Ephesus lost
their first love. They began to become weak in
their devotion to Christ. They weren't loving Him anymore
with all their heart, with all their mind, and with all their
soul and with. All their strength.
This church in the other side, though, is apparently pressing
in to love God more, to seek his face more, and to end up doing
better near the end than they were in the beginning.
I I see so many of us at times. We come to Christ.
We're excited, we're all stoked because of what Jesus did and we
just. Want to serve him?
And we got all. These promises we want to make.
And all these things. We want to do and then I see,
you know, people that. Start well and then all of a
sudden I don't see them anymore. They're not finishing well.
It's like the parable, the sower.
The person that. Receives a word with joy and the
beginning. Oh Jesus, he's so great.
He did this and saved me and oh, I'm so excited.
My life's changed and all this stuff.
And then it says, in the cares of the world, the deceitfulness
of riches. And the lusts, other things
choke the word. And then what happens?
Anybody know? We become unfruitful.
There's no life in US. The seed obviously didn't take
and the. Seed ends up dying, but the
parable the sour the 4th. Soil, it brought forth 51
hundredfold. I think back in my own life,
Jeff and I were talking about that.
This week on the phone. About the Lord.
And his work in our lives. And I had had an experience with
the Lord. When I was 20 and I thought it
was salvation, I was all excited and I was radical and I was.
Changing and I was. Wanting to tell people about the
Lord and all that kind of stuff. But it didn't.
Last real long. It lasted for a couple years and
then all of a sudden I found my desire to go back to the old
ways and to do the same old things again.
And so I had a Christian life for years.
It was sort of like schizophrenic.
I was this way one time and then I was this way another time and
then in my early 40's the Lord dealt with me through some
family crisises and I remember going to.
A church where there was a. Revival going on and.
There was only a few people there that attended the.
Revival. But the revival was for me, and
I listened to the pastor talk about what is real salvation,
what is real conversion, what is a real work of God's Spirit and
a heart. And I realized that what I
thought I had, I didn't have. And so I went down by myself on
gun on my face and said, Lord, this Christianity isn't working
for me. Something wrong?
I know what your word says and I know how great you are, but I
don't live like this is real. And I asked Him to do whatever
needed to be done in my heart in order for it to become real.
And He did. And I'm ashamed of so many of
the things I've done in my life. Or I thought I was a Christian
and I wasn't. But the Lord is merciful, and
He's so faithful, and He's a God of the second chance, isn't he?
For all of us? God's got to have a sense of
humor because six months after that He's calling me into
ministry. I'm saying I am the least
qualified lawyer, he says. Not many wise, not many mighty,
not many. No boar called.
But God has chosen the. Weak and the foolish things of
this world. To confound the wise.
So that no flesh would glory in His presence.
So I'm not interested in compromise.
Anymore. One time I was, I thought.
That was just the way it was. Everybody compromises.
Yeah, you believe, but you really don't.
Live like you believe sometimes. Because we're all human, you
know, We all cut each other's slack.
You know, I got drunk last night, you might say.
And the other person. Yeah, I was drunk two weeks ago.
I know I shouldn't have done it, but I did it.
That's not the gospel. That's not salvation.
It tells us in Galatians 5. It gives a.
List of the sins of compromise and this is written to believers
galatians chapter 5 he says the works of the flesh in verse 19
are evident adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lewdness, idolatry and this church was.
Full of idolatry and thyrotyra. Sorcery, hatred, contentions,
jealousies, outspursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions,
heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the
like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told
you in time past, that those who practice such.
Things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
God has called us for holiness and purity.
People many times ask me, do you?
Believe in eternal security, do you?
Believe once saved, always saved.
You believe you can be saved and not be saved.
That's not the that's not the question we should be asking.
Am I living in light of what the Bible says is true salvation?
Or am I kidding myself that someone just make me feel good?
You know, I get a kick out of these people that sometimes.
These churches, they get them to come.
Up front and. They'll come up front if you
want to accept Jesus a day. And you don't want to go to
hell. And who in the world?
Wants to go to hell so everybody comes up.
I mean, that sounds like a good deal.
Jesus died for my sins. If you ask him to come in your
heart and save you. You won't go to hell, you'll go
to heaven, man. Who wouldn't want that?
But there's no message of death to self.
If any man will follow me, let him deny himself he who finds
his life for my sake. Must first lose it.
There's a cost right to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
If any man will follow me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross daily and follow me. So the people come down and so
the passage I prayed his prayer after me.
Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner, please forgive me of my sins.
Came into my heart and saved me. So I don't have to go to hell
and I can be in heaven with you forever.
So the person praise it. Then the pastor goes, praise
God, you're a Christian, you're saved.
And the person's like I am. Sometimes I don't feel
different. I don't sense anything's
happened to me or but I guess if that's what you're saying, I
guess that's what I am. And so they come to church week
in and week out, month in and month out and year in and year
out, thinking that they're Christians because they prayed a
prayer. But down deep inside, their
heart is still. Doing the same things, thinking
the same things. You and I, we can't save our
self. It's the mercy of God.
It's his grace. And when God changes a life,
folks, He changes a life. We don't have to pretend it.
We don't have to fake it. We don't have to.
Have power positive thinking well yeah I pray this prayer
even though I'm. Still acting this way.
You know I'm saved because I. Prayed a prayer.
No, we're. Saved.
If we are living like Jesus Christ, we're saved if we love
the things that he loves and hates the things that he hates.
We're saved if we're new creations, right?
If any man is in Christ, he's a new creation.
Old things are passed away, right?
My old desire is to do the things I used to want to do are
passed away. I don't want to do them anymore
because my heart's been changed. All things have become new.
So if we're here today and we're still struggling with old things
and things haven't become new, we're still without Christ.
And the good news is, is that Christ is still here and.
Able to save. And so he's speaking to this
church. He's talking about judgment.
He's talking about the need for repentance.
Repentance is critical to conversion or salvation or
change or purity. In the church.
The church is a place that repentance should be the most
intense, guys, not the world. It's US.
Judgment, the Bible says, must first begin with us, and with
us, the House of God. What is it that we are
compromising with secretly? What is it that we're thinking
or? Watching or seeing or.
Doing that only God sees and no one else sees.
What is it that we're turned on by?
What is it that we're turned off by?
What is it that comes on the? TV that the Spirit of God is
just crying out. You turn that.
Filth off. I don't want you to be defiled.
I don't. Want you to become impure?
I don't want your thoughts to be corrupt.
I don't want you to be defiled as we're studying in the Old
Testament right now about the. Purifications systems.
And all that and the and the roles that God.
Gave to Moses regarding the ministry of the sacrifice.
And touching what's clean. And and not touching what's
unclean. I'll tell you God was so clear
on his displeasure for. The slightest.
Thing that would defile or make one impure or unholy.
And do you realize a thought that comes into your heart that
is not sent there by God is designed to defile you and
corrupt you? It says that we're to cast down
imaginations and every thought that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God. How many thoughts did you have
this week that came to try to exalt themselves against God's
knowledge in your life? Recognizing where they're
coming. From why they're being sent,
what the source is, it says to bring every thought into
captivity, into the obedience of Christ, every thought.
Thanks for being with us today here on Living Waters of Grace.
We are in the Book of Revelation, and we find it
fascinating how influential and involved the angels are in this
book. They bring about whatever it is
that God has instructed them to do, but it's through their
actions that much of the judgements come on the earth.
The angels are in submission to God as their authority, but He
utilizes them in unique ways throughout this book.
Like angels have a specific purpose from God, you have a
unique purpose and plan to. God wants to use you in your
life as a testimony to others and to bring others who are
currently lost into the fold of God.
God would love more than anything for all who are willing
to come to Him for salvation, but He wants it to be their
choice, not a forced situation. This is the way God works, not
forcing himself on anyone, but giving each person free will.
If you're interested in learning about this choice that's free
and that it's a gift, go to calvarychapelonline.com and
click on the About Us tab and then find the link for what we
believe. We'd love to be a help and a
resource for you as you walk through what it means to be a
follower of Jesus. If you find the contact tab on
our website, you can get in touch with us or submit a prayer
request. We'd love to hear from you.
That's all for today's edition and Revelation, but there's much
more that Pastor Clark plans to share with us from this
culminating book of the Bible. Stay tuned for that and make
sure to mention this radio program to others.
Invite them to tune into Grace FM 91.7 FM.
They can stream worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM.
This has been Living Waters of Grace.