Revelation Last Days Living

Transcription

1 Revelation Last Days Living Getting Ready for Him! - Part 3 Revelation 3:1-13 Message #7 of 26 S733 Sermon given on April 2, 2017 Sunday Morning Service Pastor Rick Lancaster

2 Getting Ready for Him! - Part 3 Revelation 3:1-13 Opening Comments Turn to Revelation 3 We continue our series: Last Days Living Living in the light of Christ s soon coming! The revelation describes to us what is coming at the end of the age Before Jesus left this earth, said He was coming back to set up His Kingdom, where He rules and reigns over the whole earth While most of the Revelation describes God s wrath being poured out on an unbelieving world, there are also messages for believers In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation Jesus writes letters to seven churches Real churches in Asia Minor at the time that John was given the Revelation Before Jesus comes to judge the world, He judges His own church Tells them what He sees that is good, and what is not good And then He tells them what they need to do to be ready for His coming And in that we see a message for each of us about getting ready for Jesus to come back to get us So far we have looked at the first four letters The Preoccupied Christian Remember that your highest calling is to love God, repent of anything that has preoccupied you from that, and repeat the things you were doing when you loved God as you should The Persecuted Christian If you are having a hard time be faithful unto death = for your whole life, persevering in tribulation and whatever other difficult circumstance God allows The Politically Correct Christian Stop or avoid compromising with the culture to avoid persecution hold fast to His name and faithfully follow Christ The Permissive Christian Keep your faith and doctrine pure, separate yourself from the impure 1

3 Jesus promised a blessing to anyone who is faithful to overcome If you missed it, you can listen or watch online Let s pray now and then get into our text for today Pray Teaching Getting Ready for Him! - Part 3 We will look at the fifth and sixth letters today, finish this four-part series within our study of Revelation after Easter Even though we start a new chapter, it is not a new section There were no chapter breaks or verse numbers originally Let s look at the fifth letter Revelation 3:1 Jesus identifies Himself to the church of Sardis using two descriptions of Himself First, He who has the seven Spirits of God referring to the Holy Spirit seven symbolizing fullness or completeness The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Triune Godhead He is in all ways God, just as Jesus is And today He is the person of the Trinity who is most active in the world Second, He who has the seven stars = angels/messengers of the churches = authority over the pastors and the churches Says, I know your works I know what is going on in your church you have a name that you are alive = their reputation is that they are a good church If you look at them from the outside you would admire them and commend them as a good, thriving church Jesus doesn t focus on the externals He sees the heart something is wrong in Sardis but you are dead obviously, not physically dead Jesus said this another way to the Pharisees, the religious people of His time Matthew 23:27-28 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 2

4 They acting like they loved and worshipped God, but it was all about the show, there was no life to their worship In the church today we see this in dead orthodoxy or traditionalism, where worship and works are controlled by denominational mandates or by the traditions of the prior generations The other end of the spectrum is dead liberalism, liberal theology people worshipping God as they believe is right In both cases the Holy Spirit is omitted, ignored, and resisted Spiritual life requires the active working of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian and the church This is the Powerless Church They had the look of life, but it was a façade that Christ saw right through as Paul would say having a form of godliness, but denying its power Jesus gives this dead, powerless church 5 things to do Revelation 3:2-3 First, Be watchful wake up to the reality of your condition This church was resting on their religion to save them they need to wake up Second strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die Movie Princess Bride hero dies, they take him to a wizard, who declares that he is not dead, just mostly dead still hope Still hope for this church need to get to work Third Remember therefore how you have received and heard Go back to the gospel as you received it at first One of the clearest signs of a dead church or Christian is its attitude toward the Bible If the Bible is a religious relic, it will bring spiritual death If it is the living Word of God, it will bring life Fourth hold fast = obey God s Word Fifth repent = for substituting a living relationship with the loving God for a lifeless religion Warning come suddenly warning of judgment His coming would not be good news to this church dead church = spiritually dead people unsaved 3

5 When Jesus comes back for His church, some churches will meet the following Sunday hardly notice a change in attendance There are some real Christians, even in this dead church Revelation 3:4-6 not defiled their garments with dead religion or liberal theology walk with Me in white = holiness, righteousness white garments future in heaven Book of Life Once you receive Christ your name is recorded in the Book of Life Revelation 13:8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus not saying someone can lose their salvation instead this is an assurance that once we are saved, we are going to stay that way This is a call for believers to stand fast in their faith To overcome in the dead church, need to be Spirit-filled, and Spiritled The next church is the one I want to be associated with The sixth church, the church of Philadelphia is the Persevering Church Revelation 3:7-8 There is no word of rebuke in this letter (also Smyrna) Jesus comes as He who is holy = purity can be followed He who is true = reliability can be trusted has the key of David keys = authority and control set before you an open door for ministry and evangelism Maybe you noticed that after Jesus saved you, He left you here on the earth why? For ministry and evangelism every Christian is left here for that reason Ministry = serving others in the name of Christ = loving others Evangelism = telling others about Jesus = loving God Gives them three reasons why He opened the door First you have a little strength not a rebuke or a criticism It speaks of humility they didn t think too highly of themselves and were faithful with what little they had 4

6 Second have kept My word they believed the Bible was the infallible Word of God and obeyed it Third have not denied My name publicly faithful to Jesus It is believed that this church lasted longer than the other six until the 13 th century open door missionaries were sent to India Life wasn t perfect for this church Revelation 3:9-10 Jesus had opened a door for them didn t mean they weren t going to be resisted Opportunity and opposition often come together Every time Jesus opens a door, Satan attempts to block it can t close it If they will persevere Jesus will humble their enemies before them And here in verse 10 we see one of the key verses regarding the timing of the Rapture Revelation 3:10 Jesus is coming back for His church verse 11 = quickly = without warning But the question asked for two millennia is when? No one on earth knows but what we do know is its temporal relationship to other events in Scripture The Book of Revelation describes the period of time when Jesus comes back to establish His kingdom on the earth = Second Coming Over 350 verses of the Bible speak about the Second Coming Revelation tells us that will take place after a time (seven years) of unprecedented tribulations upon the earth as God pours out His wrath upon a wicked, God-hating, Christ-rejecting world Persevering Christians who have a little strength, have kept His word, and have not denied His name are given a radical promise here in verse 10 I will keep you from from = ek = out of the hour of trial = from the period of time of trial Some people believe that the church will go through some or all of the seven-tribulation period 5

7 Jesus says He is going to keep the persevering Christians out of that time He will do that by coming as He promised in John 14 to claim His bride before the wrath of God is poured out in an event that we call the Rapture We will discuss that at length once we get to chapter 4 Revelation 3:11-13 coming quickly = without warning at any moment imminent pillar in the temple = strength and security To the overcomers in Pergamos white stone, new name = intimacy with God Here three new names written on the overcomer name of My God = speaks of being under His authority and protection name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem Revelation 21 & 22 = our eternal home, your future address My new name Revelation 19 = eternally marked by our relationship to Jesus In each of the seven letters, there is a promise to those who overcome Next time I am going to put all of those promises together and tell you that each overcomer is promised all the promises As I wrap this up, would like to review the six letters we have looked at so far To get ready for Jesus to come back, we need to be overcomers The Preoccupied Christian Remember that your highest calling is to love God, repent of anything that has preoccupied you from that, and repeat the things you were doing when you loved God as you should The Persecuted Christian If you are having a hard time be faithful unto death = for your whole life, persevering in tribulation and whatever other difficult circumstance God allows The Politically Correct Christian Stop or avoid compromising with the culture to avoid persecution hold fast to His name and faithfully follow Christ 6

8 The Permissive Christian Keep your faith and doctrine pure, separate yourself from the impure The Powerless Christian Stay alert to the condition of your soul, Be Spirit-filled and Spirit-led The Persevering Christian Use what little strength you have, keep obeying God and His Word, and use your whole life to be a witness of the Savior and lover of your soul, Jesus Christ The glorified Christ is coming for His bride the church, for me and for you Are you getting ready? Let s pray Amen Resources Informational papers There is not a new paper for this week But there are copies of the three I have written so far Pick them up in the back Please don t hesitate to ask questions on any of this Book The End by Mark Hitchcock The End Times in Chronological Order Ron Rhodes Available at the Resource table Final Words Announcements Encouragements Read Revelation 3 before next Sunday We will look at the next two letters Remember to keep praying for the team in Israel Communion elements Prayer Team Need a Bible 7