Seven Churches, Seven Messages

[Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music]I[Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music]I[Music][Music][Music][Music]for[Music][Music][Music]for[Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music]I want to welcome each of you here tothe Tower of Power the stone tower 7thDay Adventist Church my name is Jed I amthe head older here and we open thisSanctuary up and welcome each one of youhere and glad you are part of ourworship service here today I want toextend also a special welcome to thoseof you who are joining us online I justwant to mention you missed out on awonderful wonderful presentation we hadat the 10:00 hour unfortunately you'regoing to have to talk to people who camein person to get a little bit moreinformation about what that was now forthose of you here visiting for the firsttime welcome to Stone Tower for those ofyou who visit it uh with us on airregular basis well this is considerthis your second home and so we do havea few announcement for those of you whoare actual members of this church and Ijust wanted to let you know that thischurch we're trying to encourage twoseparate new things um some of them'snot new in fact both activities are notnew and those of you who tuned in lastweek online saw that we had a series oftestimonies during the Divine hour andfor the those of you who were hereduring the church worship service uhexperienced that firsthand how many ofyou that were here or watching onlinewere blessed by those individualtestimonies from church members could Isee some hands oh great number of youwell we want to let you know that thatsort of thing happens on a weekly basishere at this church every Sabbathafternoon except for today um they meetdownstairs in the ABC roomand they have a s Sabbath Fellowshiptestimonial group that has been meetingfor quite some time and the other thingthat we try to encourage besides justgiving testimony is also prayer andbesides our midweek prayer meetings thatwe have which I know is very difficultfor us to get to uh Sabbath morningswe've been having a group of people thathave been religiously actively prayinghere in the front at 9:30 in themornings and I want to just encourageall of our members and those of you whoare visiting those of you who areplanning on visiting please make that apart of your scheduled stop as well at9:30 here in the mornings we have ourprayer and it is uh a church that praystogether that stays together and growstogether and in fact if you think aboutwhat happened in the upper room that'swhat they did before the outpouring ofthe Holy Spirit right yeah well uh oneother announcement I wanted to point outout to all Stone Tower members we dohave a family meeting on ThursdayOctober 12th that's this Thursday atwhattime 700 p.m. that's correct so I justwanted to remind you ofthat and uh our church offering today isfor local church budget but as wasmentioned just a moment ago we will becollecting a special love offering forAdventist Frontier missions and ifyou're wanting to have your taxdeduction receipt go to the foyer andyou can grab a magazine and in thatmagazine there will be an envelope youcan put it in there and we will becollecting that offering this afternoonafter thelunch uh I just wanted to point out Imade this reference lastnight where we spend about $900million on Outreach to unreached peoplegroups well for every$100,000 that a Christian earns$1.70 is given towards Ministry to reachunreached peoplegroups out of$100,000 that they earn justa170 so here in North America we spendabout 900 million on Outreach tounreached people groups this is the sameamount of money that people here inNorth America spend on Halloweencostumes for theirpets so you saw a lot of those redregions on the maps that was just in onecountry or two countries in Africa we'retalking about regions upon regions inthe world that have not been met withthe Gospel of Jesus Christ we have adaunting work ahead of us and one of theways we can help with that isfinancially um after this service wewill have a fellowship meal downstairsafter the sermon and the worship serviceI will be back up here to give you somerules that we must follow okay and so Iwill be back up during that time toexplain those rules but yes we do havesome rules and then after that meal wewill be coming back up here atapproximately 2:30 roughly uh we willbegin our final session and for those ofyou who are joining us online I suggestthat as soon as the worship service isover get in your cars and come herebecause we're not streaming that foryou all right well I want to do a formalintroduction of Dr Vine before we beginour service and uh he was born into apastoral family he grew up with his twinbrother and two sisters in homes allacross the United Kingdom he graduatedwith a business management degree andserved in the UK Public Health Caresystem before God led him to Adra howmany are familiar with Adra okay andduring thistime Conrad met his and married his wifeLuda and they have two adult childrennow but initially he served in azerbajanand he served there with Adra untilaround 2002 in a variety of rolesworldwide and then following hisSeminary training at Newbold College heand Luda began their pastoral Ministryin London then in the Middle East Unionand then in Minnesota here in the UnitedStates and then afterwards he answeredthe call to serve as the president ofadminist Frontier missions and that'swhere he currently serves uh he is amember overat a local church in Michigan which mostof you are already aware but I heardthat he only spends probably twosabbaths there and spends the rest ofthe time traveling as he does not onlyto share but also to uh work on behalfof Adventist Frontier missions so we aregrateful for uh him being here at thestone tower church and we we know thatall of us here will be blessed becauseof this experiencetoday on this High Sabbath so at thistime now children we're going to turnthe program over to you we have Uncle Juh not Josh I'm sorry we have Jonahteacher Jonah who is going to do ourchildren's story for us so children ifyou mind don't mind come up here andhave a seat on the floor in front of himand we'll have a children's story foryou[Music][Music][Music][Music]we got all the children here youbeautiful children all right uh this uhwhat's your name Vincent you want to saya prayer yeah okay dear Lord please helpeverything stay safe and healthy in ourlives and please hope God saveeverything in the world Amen all rightthank you all right I'm going to tell uhlittle story this morning you kids arehelping me to overcome my fears herebecause I get a littlenervous about this and and uh thinkwonder if I'm going to do a good job ifI'm going to be prepared so I wrote downsome notes Here I got this from ChadCruiser on uh this story from ChadCruiser on Amazing Facts TVandU this man Howard Rutledge was on theUSS Bond home in the Gulf of tonan anduh during the Korean conflict and thewar and U he was flying his airplane upover North Korea and it was struck byenemy fire and he uh as he's going downhe had to eject from the airplane tosave his life and as his uh parachuteopened he looked back and the airplaneexploded and he knew his life had beensaved and uh but he landed in a town inenemy territory and they captured himand they put him in prison his prisonwas called the Hanoi Hilton and uh thatthat's a little bit of humor they callsarcasm the Americans called it theHanoi Hilton but of course it wasn't atall like the Hilton hotel which would bea nice place to stay if you weretraveling but he was seven years inprison and five of them in solitaryconfinement and solitary confinementmeans all by himself with no but otherpeople like uh being locked in yourcloset all byyourself and uh he wrotethis he wrote this it is hard todescribe what solitary confinement cando to unnerve and defeat a man youquickly Tire of standing up or sittingdown sleeping or being awake there areno no books no paper or pencils nomagazines or newspapers the only colorsyou see are drab gray and dirty Brownmonths or years may go by when you don'tsee the sunrise or the moon green grassor flowers you are locked in alone andSilent in your filthy little cellbreathing stale rotten air and trying tokeep your sanity in prison I discoveredhow important regular times ofreflection can be living in America onebecomes pre occupied with family andcareer when I was I was seldom I seldomthought seriously about what I was doingor why I was doing it when I was freewhen days are filled with travelconversation books papers moviestelevisions meals radios Billboards andthe like the mind is constantly lookingoutward and dealing with the worldoutside and around but when suddenly allthat is taken away it is forced to dealwith the worldinsideand see I'm I'm nervous here a littlebit so can you please pay attention okaynow the sights and sounds and the smellof death were all around me my Hungerfor spiritual food soon outdid my Hungerfor a stake I tried desperately torecall snatches of scripture sermons TheGospel choruses from childhood and hymnswe sang in church how I struggled torecall those scriptures and hymns I hadspent my first 18 years in a SouthernBaptist Sunday school and I was amazedat how much I could recall regrettably Ihad not seen the importance ofmemorizing verses from the Bible orlearning the gospel songs now when Ineeded them it was too late I neverdreamed that I would spend almost sevenyears five of them in solitaryconfinement in a prison in North Vietnamand that thinking about one memorizedverse could have made a whole daybearable one portion of a verse I didremember was Thy word have I hid in myheart how often I wished I had reallyworked to hide God's word in myheart and uh he's talking about uhPsalms11911 your word have i hidden in myheart that I might not sin against youand uh I was trying to memorize this Ithought different ways that I couldmemorize this anduh umanyway is that something you could saywith me you could say your word have ihidden in my heart can you saythat your word have i hidden in my heartyour word I have hidden in my heart thatI might not sin against you that I mightnot sin against you Psalms 11911 Psalms11911 all right I I got a little helphere thank you Jesus quoted from theBible 78 times so and he had learnedthose scriptures just like you and meand and he quoted from 27 books of theOld Testament 40 verses are quoted inthe book ofActs so these Disciples of Jesus theyknew their Bible they memorized versesfrom theBible and I'm going to tell you a littlebit about the walldances um this come comes from theecclesiastical Empire by at Jones and hewrote about the W dances their crowningoffense was their love and reverence forscriptures and their burning Zeal inmaking converts The Inquisitor of Pauinforms us that they had translations ofthe whole Bible in the vulgar tonguewhich the church vainly sought tosuppress and which they uh studied withIncredible a acidity I had to look thatup constant or close attention to whatone is doing he knew a peasant who couldrecite the Book of Job word for wordmany of them had the whole new of theNew Testament Heart By Heart and simpleas they were were dangerous disputants adisciple of 10 days standing would uhseek out another whom he could instructand when the dull and untrained brainwould Fain abandon the task in despairthey would speak words of encouragementlearn a single word word or verse a dayin a year you will know 300 and thus youwill gain in theend all rightso the moral of this story is it'sreally important to uh memorize versesin the Bible does anybody here know averse that they've memorized from theBible whatever he says do it John 2:5all right thank you okay I'm going tosay as a prayer I'm going to say uh the23rd psalm and so let's bow our heads PRcan you pray allright dear God help us have a great timetoday help everybody that's in much needin Jesus name amen uh amen thank youvery much all right[Music][Music]for[Music]let's go ahead and bow our heads forprayer father God we just want to thankyou for waking us us waking us up thismorning to a gorgeous beautiful Sabbathday giving us this new lease on lifewhere we can have another chance anotherday to practice being like Jesus Christand we dare not do so on our own on ownmight or our own will so father May theHoly Spirit Come may he transform eachperson here may he give us therighteousness of Christ may he transformus into His Image so that as holy peoplewe can keep your Sabbath sa day HolyFather as we worship you in spirit andin truth we ask that you get all theglory for we're here to worship you loveyou and praise you and bless you andwe're doing this in Jesus name amen[Music][Music]this morning our call to worship isfound in Psalms 57 9- 11 I will PraiseYou O Lord among the peoples I will singto you among the Nations for your mercyreaches unto the heavens and your truthunto the clouds be exalted oh God abovethe heavens and let your glory be aboveall the Earthamen I love Jesus do you love Jesus thismorning as we are about to sing praisestogether this is a beautiful opportunityfor you to express that love for himamen please join us as we sing248 oh how I love Jesusthere is a name I love to hear I love tosingit it sounds like music in my ear thesweetest name onearth oh how I loveJesus Oh How I Love JesusI loveJesus because he first lovedme he tells me of a savior's love whodied to set mefree it tells me of his preious bloodthe Sperfect oh how I love JesusOh How I LoveJesus Oh How I LoveJesus because he first lovedme it tells of one who Ling heart canfeel my deepest[Music]W bears aart that none can bear Be LoveOh How I LoveJesus Oh How I Love[Music]Jesus How I LoveJesus because he first lovedme amen now if you just turn the pageover to praise him praise Him hymnnumber 249Praise Him Praise Him Jesus our blessedredeem sing Earth his wonderful loveProclaim hail him ha him highest ARangel in glory strength and honor giveto His holyname like asheer Jesus will go hischildren in his arms he carries them alldaylong praise him praise him tell of hisexcellent great praise himpraise ever in joyfuls Praise Him Praise Him Jesus ourBlessedRedeemer for our sins he suffered andbless anddied he our Rock Our Hope of Eternalsalv him H him Jesus thecrucified sound his Praise Jesus WhoBore ofSorrows loveunbounded wonderful de andstrong praise him praise him tell of hisin great praise him praise him ever injoyfuls Praise Him Praise Him Jesus ourBlessedRedeemer Heavenly Port Lwithana JesusSavior forever and ever crown him crownhim prophet and Prest andKing Christ is coming over the worldVictorious power and Glory unto the Lordbelong praise him praise him tell of hisexcellentgreat praise him praise him ever injoyfulsong amen amen please stand as As wesing Our opening hymn marvelous Gracehymn[Music]109 marvelous Grace ofouring Lord Grace that exceeds our sinand our guil y on calarMount there the blood of the lamb wasspit Grace Grace God's Grace Grace thatwill pardon and cleanswithin Grace Grace God's Grace Gracethat is greater than all oursin s and SP like a sea with cin the all withinfinite grace that is greater is GRAand to The Refuge the mightycross Grace Grace God's Grace Grace thatis greaterthanwithin Grace Grace Godgra gra that is greater than all our[Music]Sous matless Grace freely bestowed onall whobelieve you that are longing to see hisface will you this moment his gracereceivegra God's Grace Grace that will pardonand CLEwithin Grace Grace God's Grace Gracethat is greater than all ours amen please be seated[Music]happy Sabbath it's great to see you allhere this morning and uh I'm here to dothe uh call for worship or tithe uhtoday's tithe is for the local churchbudget and uh the scripture today is youcan find in Luke 6: 38 and it says giveand it will be given to you a a goodmeasure pressed down shaken together andpoured over running over your lap uhthere's a story that comes for todayit's a there's a couple Gloria and Enochwho uh had planned a long neededvacation and they set aside all theirmoney for this vacation and their planwas to go visit their son's family andfor a couple days and their threegranddaughters they were going to thengo to the the Coast to their favoriteBeach and enjoy the sun well thatSabbath when they were there with theiruh at the church with theirgranddaughters uh the pastor made a callto uh give money so they can repair theroof of their church and Gloria andEnoch were were called upon and feltimpressed to decided to give all themoney that they saved for their vacationto the church for the roof and so theydecided then just to spend the rest oftheir vacation with their son's familywell Upon returning home from theirvacation they uh got a letter in themail and Gloria's work from the hospitalsent her a letter saying they hadgrossly miscalculated her wages and thatin that letter was a check for doublethe amount that they exactly double theamount they put in for the roof of thechurch and it's amazing what God can dowith when we give our money and it saysthe bible promises that when you give itwill be given toyou we invite you to give to your localchurch budget so the work of theAdventist Church here at Stone Tower cancontinue and I know for myself on mytestimonies there's there's been yearswhere I'vegone paycheck to paycheck running upcredit cards and every year there's beenblessings of I know taxes are senssensitive top IC but I've been abundanceat tax time to have more than I thoughtI would get that would cover eliminateall my debt and then some so it is ablessing what God can do when you arefaithful in your tithe let us pray dearJesus help us to believe in yourpromises that you will provide for uswhen we give our resources and ourfinances to advance God's kingdom hereon Earth in your name we pray amen thankyoujust to clarify we have a collection boxin the foyer as you exit to your rightand you can give online as well and justso that no one from the conferencefreaks out no the tith goes to theconference and all the other localchurch offering will stay here at thischurch so just wanted to make thatdistinction uh we have a new Prayer songstarting today if my people we will singthat together and then we will have ourintercessory[Music][Music]prayer mypeople who are called by myname willhumblethemselves and pray and seek myface mypeople turn from their WickedWays then I will hear fromheaven and I will[Music]for theirs if you are able please join me beforeOur Redeemer[Music]God good morningFather this sabbath we recognize thatJesus gave the promise to his disciplesthat they should receive the Holy Spirithowever this didn't remove the necessityof prayer and as a church we've beenpraying moreearnestly we've been having people praytogether unitedly even Sabbathmornings father the disciples prayed allthe mo most earnestly in the out upperroom and they continued in in prayer inone Accord and so father we who ought tobe encourage engaged in the most solemnwork of Preparing People for the comingof Jesus Christ we need to also continuein prayer for we recognize that we'reliving in the most solemn period of thisworld's history the destiny of Earth'steeming multitudes is about to bedecided and our own future well-beingand also the salvation of other Soulsdepends upon the course which we nowpursue we need to be guided by the HolySpirit of Truth we need to earnestlyinquire each one of us father what willyou have us to do help us to Humbleourselves before you and to meditateupon much meditate much upon your holyword the holy scriptures we cry out likethe psalmist for your name's sake ohJehovah pardon our guilt for it is greathide your face from our sins and blotout all our iniquities create in us aclean heart oh God and renew a rightSpirit Within Me Do not Cast Away usfrom your presence and do not take awayyour Holy Spirit from us restore unto usthe joy of your salvation and sustain uswith a willing Spirit we know that youare just and able to forgive us andcleanse us from allunrighteousness so forgive us our sinsas we forgive each other help us tolearn this through the message youprepared for us through your speaker DrVine and we want to remember yourmercies oh father and your steadfastlove for they have been fromold make us to know your ways teach usyour paths we love you Jehovah becauseyou hear our voice andsupplications because you have inclinedyour ears to us you will call upon wewill call upon you daily and as we seekfirst your kingdom and yourrighteousness we thank you for your manyblessings on this holy Sabbath day andin Jesus name may all of God's peoplesay amen[Music]happySabbath uh today's scripture reading istaken from Revelation 1 verse1-6 the revelation of Jesus Christ whichGod gave unto him to show unto hisservant things which must shortly cometo pass and he sent and signified it byhis Angel unto his servant John who bearrecord of the word of God and of thetestimony of Jesus Christ and all thingsthat he saw blessed is he that readethand they that hear the words of thisprophecy and keep those things which arewritten therein for the time is at handdrawn to the seven churches which are inAsia Grace be unto you and peace fromhim which is and which was and which wasand which is to come and from the sevenspirits which are before his throneand from Jesus Christ who is thefaithful W faithful witness and thefirst begotten of the dead and theprince of the kings of the earth untohim that loved us and washed us from oursins in his own blood and has made usKings and Priests unto God and hisfather to him be glory and Dominionforever and ever amen[Music][Music][Music][Music]my faith has found aresting place not in my workor I trustthelivingone his wounds for meshall Ineed theAR I need noit isenough thatJesus died and that he died for[Music]me enoughfor me thatJesus saves this send myFe hissinful soul I come to him he'll nevercast meout I need no otherARyou I need nootherplease it isenough thatJesus died and let he died forme the wonderousCross Your Precious Bloodyoursacrifice it isenough your heart hasL me arethe to the Cross you areleadingstill the WondrousCross Your PreciousBlood your sacriit isenough your hearthasmehere to the Cross you arelead Ineed nootherAR I need noitisenough thatJesusdied and that hedied for[Music]me ethankyou i' would like to say thank you toour singers and our guitarists wasn'tthat beautiful yes I often sit before asermon just wishing they would just keepsinging and just keep singing till wehave to break for lunch that would bereally helpful at times uh but uh Ithank the Lord for giving gifts to hischurch one of which is the gift of musicand I praise God for young people whoare willing to stand and use their giftsfor the glor of God so thank you so muchwould like to say thank you to the uhelders and the leaders here of the stonetower 7 Adventist Church for inviting meum I think I was invited a while ago andwe were trying to make our calendarskind of coincide but it's a privilege tobe here and um it's my second time in inOregon I was here back in July I thinkup at the Sandy church and now I'm heredown in in uh Portland itself and you dolive in a beautiful part of the worldit's very beautiful as you drive arounduh if I come back in maybe March orApril maybe I'll have another opinion ofit but at least in the summer months youlive in a beautiful part of the worldmuch like Michigan so um we used to sayin the Pastoral Ministry when I waspastoring Minnesota they said if you geta call to Florida in February fromMinnesota then God is definitely callingyou and so um anyway I bring greetingsfrom my wife I have only one wife whichis good news um and uh two children uhone my son our son is at Southern andour daughter is was just Andrew and umwas so bring greetings for my family andfor my home church over at Village at 7Adventist Church in beran Springs so umwhen you're a pastor uh preaching haschanged in the last 5 years quitesignificantly uh when when you uh beforethe pandemic and really before manypeople were doing much online streamingum when you were a pastor and youpreached a congregation for your localuh sermon for your local church thatsermon was designed for that localchurch church and the spiritual needs ofthat local congregation and then duringthe pandemic and maybe just before thepandemic many churches started streamingonline and most of the audience was theshuttin members at home those whocouldn't get to church and then duringthe pandemic everything changed andpeople started um Church surfing orchurch hopping from the comfort of theirtheir their couch on the Sabbath morningand they'd sit there with a cup of Idon't know hot chocolate or something intheir pajamas and and nighting dressnight gowns and so forth and they kindof skim the internet seeing Whichchurches they wanted to listen to fromSabbath to Sabbath and in the processthe nature of preaching haschanged why because you used to be ableto preach for the spiritual needs of agivencongregation and now when you preach theaudience are those who are watchingonline and are going to watch it onYouTube later and because of that you'velost the ability as a preacher to speakwith nuance and texture and subtletythat is necess necessary for the localcongregation particularly if you're thepastor for that congregation because youknow that what you say that has nuanceand subtlety and texture for your localcongregation will be misinterpreted themoment it goes out on YouTube or anyother platform so preaching has changedquite significantly in the last 3 tofive years and so uh particularly whenyou come to a church to preach onesermon and you've never been here beforeand I hope to be back here again but Lesas you might never come here again umlet's say Jesus coming before then sowhat do you preach about and so umanyway today I want to talk about andrather than giving one sermon I'm goingto give seven all right so I'm going tokind of uh squeeze it in here um I wasat a um a large Church down in h nearHuntsville Alabama the state line Churchin July uh some of you know that churchI think from online and it was about12:30 and I was sitting behind Dr Isaacotoni the senior pastor and I wasthinking when am I going to get topreach here well I used to Pastor inJamaican churches in Britain and I itwas quite common not to stand up topreach before 1:00 okay and then you goon to like 2:30 with your sermon and asI as I was sitting there somebody sentme a text message and said pastor V theysaid they're deliberately trying torestrict your preaching you've got 15minutes left and I thought no that's notthe case this is an African-Americancongregation I know this we've got allday here and as and as Dr Isaac alonisat down beside me he says brother Vinehe said you can preach for as long longas you want to but just know we have ourevening program at 4:00 so as long asyou finish by 4:00 we're good so um Ionly went on till about 2:30 that dayand um I think the congregation werequite blessed when I finished uh so uhthey were blessed by the finishing notby the giving of the sermon I should addthat uh so umtoday um I'm going to talk about theseven churches of Revelation uh becausethere are seven messages in those sevenchurches and and you may find yourselfin one of the seven spiritual conditionsthat are described in the seven churchesof Revelation chapters 2 and three soI'd like to invite you to Bow your headswith me we're going to invite The SameSpirit who gave these messages to to theApostle John to speak to our hearts andour minds this morning dear heavenlyfather as We Gather in your house onyour day among your people father we'regrateful for the freedom we have toworship you according to our consciencewe're grateful just to be alive and tobe here in good health and father I praythat your holy spirit will speak to eachof our hearts this morning Lord most ofus have never met here today at leastI've never met most of these brothersand sisters but Lord you created them intheir mother's wombs you knit themtogether for Heavenly purpose and soLord whatever I sharetoday May It Be spiritually F spiritualfood and spiritually nourishing forevery person whose head is bowed herethis morning Father we pray for thosewho are watching online scattered acrossOregon and around the world we pray thatwherever they may be bowed here todaythat your holy spirit will move upontheir hearts and lives in a powerful andand unique way father may Jesus beglorified in all that is said to donesaid and done this morning in the nameof Jesus we pray amen so um in thescriptures the number seven representstotality and Perfection and the lastbook of the Bible is called Revelationand it's sometimes called the revelationof St John or the revelation of John andin the Book of Revelation there aresevens uh that appear repeatedly thereare seven candlesticks there are sevenstars there are seven churches there areseven seals there are seven spiritsthere are seven angels there sevenplagues there are seven trumpets thereare seven horns and there are how manymountains seven there are sevenmountains and uh each of these each ofthese messages of the seven churchesthat we're going to look at todaycontains a few standard components butbefore we get into those just share withme a few moments looking at the theintroduction to the Book of Revelationuh because uh as was read by our sisterand thank you very much sister for thosefirst six verses that you shared with usthe very first phrase of the Book ofRevelation says the revelation of JesusChrist now you can read this in twodifferent ways when I say this isJohnny's story that means it is eitherthe story about Johnny's life or it astory that Johnny gives it can it can beinterpreted both ways grammatically it'sa subjective and objective genitive genis a possessive case but um this is arevelation of Jesus Christ it is theRevelation that he gives us the bookRevelation the word revelation isapocalypsis in Greek that's why we callthis the apocalypse and it actuallymeans the unveiling and so the unveilingis the idea that when you get up in themorning and your bedroom is in darknessyou pull back the curtains so you canseeclearly and so the Book of Revelation isgiven that we might see clearly andunderstand the times in which we are tolive live that there the struggle thisworld is going to go through beforeJesus comes again it is not given to bea book of mystery it is a given to be arevelation of Jesus Christ it is arevelation that he gives but it is alsoa revelation of who he is and what he'sdoing for you and for me so it can beread both ways and this was givenaccording to the passage on the screenwhich God gave him to show his servantsthat is you and I what must soon takeplace he made it known by sending hisAngel to his servant John who testifiedto the word of God and to the testimonyof Jesus Christ even to all that he sawso John when he receives this Visionthis the there are four Visions in theBook of Revelation when he receivesthese four Visions from Jesus Christ heis now a prisoner in the aian sea on asmall island called patnos and he's aprisoner because of his testimony toJesus Christ so this is a suffering manwho is giving us this this this Visiontoday he said blessed is the one whoreads aloud the words of the prophecyand blessed are those who hear and tokeep what is written in it for the timeis near so we've spoken for a fewmoments about the word revelation um butlet's think for a few minutes about thepromise of God's blessing to us todayGod promises a blessing that word ismacaros it's the same word that appearsin the Beatitudes blessed are thepeacemakers for they shall be called thechildren of God Etc the word blessed ismccarus it means that you come under theblessing of God so you come under theblessing of God if you read the words ofthis prophecy there is a blessingpromised from God to those who take thetime to read the book of Revelation italso said blessed are those that as youcome under the blessing of God are thosewho hear and who keep what is written init for the time is near and that phrasehere and to keep are originally presentparticiples which means a bettertranslation would be and those those whoread this book they come under the theones who come under God's blessing arethose who continue to hear and tocontinue to keep who are keeping on anongoing continual basis the things thatare written within the Book ofRevelation so this is not given so youcan read it once you think well that'sinteresting then you put it away andfile it away in your memory banksomewhere there was a promise a blessingpromised by our heavenly father for allwho read aloud the words of this bookfor those who continue to hear the wordsof this book and for those who keep thatwhich is written within the Book ofRevelation so as we live our lives as wekeep what is written within the Book ofRevelation God promises a blessing toevery hearer can you say Amen to that soas we're going to go through these sevenchurches this morning the promise fromGod to you is if you don't just hear itonce but you continue to hear it that isyou carry it with you through daily lifeyou may want to kind of write some ofthese promises out as we go through themand you carry them through your dailylife so you continually hear what Godword is to you there's revelation ofJesus Christ and the Revelation fromJesus Christ and as you keep what iswritten within these promises and withinthese messages to the seven churches youwill receive a blessing fromGod so I want to challenge youtoday to before we get into these sevenchurchesmessages just to Covenant with God inyour heart that whatever he speaks toyou this morning whatever he convictsyou of whatever he impresses upon yourheart mind and conscience that you'regoing to follow through with it beforewe get into the messages themselves toomany people listen then they say that'sinteresting and I'm convicted but I'llwait until I find some more evidence inscripture for that no if the Holy Spiritbrings you conviction today put it intopractice today and tomorrow and untilJesus comes again and it is in livingthe teachings of Jesus Christ that otherpeople will see Jesus Christ inyou it goes on to say John to the sevenchurches who are in Asia that's Westernturkey we'll see on a map in a momentgrace to you and peace from him who isand who was and who is to come that isGod the father and from the sevenspirits who are before his throne thatis the Holy Spirit and from Jesus Christthe faithful witness the firstborn ofthe dead and the ruler of the kings ofthe earth to him who loves us and freedus from our sins by his blood that isJesus Christ and made us to be a kingdompriests serving his God and Father tohim be glory and Dominion forever andever amen so this this book is giventhat we may understand the times inwhich may live and also that we mightbring glory to our Heavenly Father inliving themessage and the very first words thatGod that Jesus gives to the sevenchurches that are in Asia including ustoday is this the wordGrace God is givingGrace Grace and peace when Jesus wasborn the Angels sang in Luke Chapter 2The Heavenly Choir The Heaven's open theAngels sang and it it says there andpeace on Earth Good Will to how to whoall men so when Jesus was born theAngels announced a message of Good Willand peace to all of humanity at hisbirth and in the last book of of theBible uh it opens with the phrase Graceyou as we're going to see the very lastverse of the Book of Revelationemphasizes this that Grace to those whohear the words of this book that Jesusis offering Grace and peace to those whohear and to keep the words of thisbook thatmeans you don't deserve God's blessingblessing neither do I but God wants tobless youanyway and he wants to show Grace and toshower Grace upon his people you knowwhen you are baptized in the name of thefather and the Son and the Holy Spiritto bapt to be baptized means tothoroughly and come under the water thewater reaches every part of your beingand the name of the father Son and HolySpirit will uh the character of God thename of God Is His glory and that is hischaracter so to be baptized in the nameof the father Son and the Holy Spiritmeans that there is no part of yourcharacter where the grace of God is Notinfused where the grace of God does notwash over it that every part of yourlife God's grace covers it and blessesit and washes away the the the sin andThe Shame of the past and so this thismessage begins with grace to the churchthe Stone Tower Church and peace fromGod above that God is we think of theBook of Revelation as like Wars andbeasts and and all this kind of stuffand there is true there is some of thatin there but the very first thing Jesuswants us to know today is that his basicposture towards Fallen humanity is ofGrace andpeace Grace and peace to each one of ustoday now this book originally waswritten to the seven churches and therewe find it in Revelation 111 and so umJohn he's on the island of Patmos and hehears his voice behind him saying writein a book what you see in send it to theseven churches to Ephesus to Smyrna topergamum to thyra to Sardis to toPhiladelphia and to leoda so these arethe seven churches that the that we'regoing to be covering today and when Johnturns around see who's looking at who'stalking to him he sees his vision ofJesus in Revelation CH 1: 12 through 1through 12 uh vers 12 through 16 andthis is an EP pictorial depiction ofJesus walking among the seven lampstandsthe seven lampstands represent the sevenchurches that these seven messages arebeing given to now you notice that Jesusdoes not stand among seven LED lights hestands among sevencandlesticks now why is that significantbecause if you have a a Candlestick andyou put a candle and you light it andyou put it under a roof a ceiling inyour let's say your living room and andthe roof is covered with white paintafter a while does that paint stay whiteno every Candlestick gives out lightthat is good but every Candlestick givesout its fair share of soot and grime andsmoke and every Church gives outlight and every Church gives out itsfair share of soot and grime andsmoke and you can choose to focus on thesoot and the grime and the smoke and notto come anymore because it stings myeyes or you can choose to focus on thelights that is coming from thatCandlestick I want to encourage you tofocus on the light that comes from theCandlestick because until Jesus comesagain every Church represented by acandle is going to be giving out lightsoot smoke and grime in equal measurethat's just part of our fallen conditionso to come to a church and expect thereto be sinless individuals who will neverhurt you is an unrealistic expectationThis Side ofHeaven we come to church in order thatthe light of God May shine into ourlives and that that light may shinethrough us into our widercommunity so Jesus Walks among thesechurches Jesus Walks among churches thatgive out soot and grime and smoke justas much light he does do turn his backon churches that have G throughdifficulty he doesn't turn his back onchurches that have had disputes ordivisions ordisputation now I don't know much aboutthis church but I know you've had a fewa difficult few months and I'm sorry forthat but part of the message for todayis that Jesus doesn't walk away fromfrom um candlesticks that give out Grimeand soot and smoke and neither shouldwe when we pressed together and thismorning when we walked into church umwith uh brother Jed and we saw a groupof people down here praying for God'sblessing upon this congregation todaythat brought me joy like nothing elsefor people to be praying and asking forthe outpouring of the Holy Spirit uponthis building upon this congregation andall who had sit and listen to themessages this morning that brought megreatjoy so Jesus does not walk away from syycandlesticks and neither should we hesticks with them because he knows thatthey give out light and because thoseseven faulty churches that we're goingto cover in a minute his message to themis one of Grace andpeace so those seven churches there's amap of Western turkey some of you havehad the privilege to go to Turkey umI've been there many times in my lifeand there was once I actually went tosee the seven churches it took me twodays to get around them with anAdventist guide and so if you look atthe Western map of Turkey about 2thirdof the way down you've got the city ofismir do somebody see the city ismir onthe map there on the on the aian coastuh if you look at the western side ofTurkey um the like the light green partof the map look down the coast and yousee just where it says Greece on the mapgo due east of that go 90° to the rightof that and you come to the big Inletand that's the city of ismia that's thesecond city of Turkey today and that'sthat's where the start of these sevenchurches is and so um the seven Church'sRevelation were actually on a old postalroute and so there you see the oldpostal route on the screenwe start out with Ephesus that's nearmodern day ismia then it goes to Smyrnaand then pergamos is up in the northit's on a very steep Mountain then youcome to thyra in a valley and then youcome to Sardis on top of a mountain aclifftop then you come to Philadelphiain a valley then finally we're going toget to leod DEA so the the sevenchurches were on a postal route so whenwhen John on the island of Patmos therewhere he was a prisoner of the Romanswhen he gave this these Le letters heknew they were going to be passed aroundthe postal route that the Romans hadestablished there in Western turkey andeach message to each church has a fewstandard ingredients every message has adescription of Jesus and thatdescription of Jesus relates to thespiritual situation and condition ofthat church there's something that Jesusknows about that congregation there's acommendation from Jesus um that appearsin all of the seven messages other thanthe church leoda there's no Commendationor there is no word of approval for theChurch of leoda there is a pastoralrebuke there is pastoral counsel fromJesus there is a warning what willhappen if they do not listen to thismessage and then he gives acharacteristic of the church that issignificant and then it concludes with apromised reward from God to all wholisten to these messages so thesemessages historically went to sevenliteral churches and in in in inSalvation history they apply throughseven eras of church history uh from thechurch of Ephesus that was the firstlove church in the time of the Apostlesnow we're living in the era of theleodan church we're going to see that aswe go through today and each one of usrepresents one of those seven churchestoday in our own spiritual walk withGod so even though there are sevenmessages you may find that one of themparticularly relates to you or theexperiences that you've gone through asa follower of Jesus Christ so we come tothe first of these seven churches andthis is the city of Ephesus now Ephesuswas the principal Port of the Romanprovince of Asia Minor we now know thatas turkey today and it sat on a majorEast West Highway it was a tradingcenter and through the city and the portof Ephesus people traveled from Greeceand Rome in the west through Ephesusalong the trade routes to the MiddleEast and ultimately they go throughmodern day Persia and then ultimately toChina in the Far East so whenever youget a TR a trading City you get wealthand it was a major port city it was acenter of luxurious living we estimateabout 200 100,000 people lived inEphesus at the time of the Apostle Paulit was a center of slave trafficking andthere was every form of human Indulgenceknown to humanity was exploited in thecity of Ephesus It was a commercialcenter with a huge Marketplace and itwas also a religious Center there was uma temple there of Artemis of theEphesians and she was worshiped in amagnificent Temple known by thecontemporaries as one of the SevenWonders of the Ancient World now um ifyou go to like the Lincoln Memorial inWashington DC see that gives you an ideaof the size scale and Majesty of theTemple of emus it was huge with hugemarble colums and this is a small umAmphitheater here in Ephesus this is oneof the main drags going through Ephesusand you can walk the streets of Ephesustoday and uh so you have the pavedstreets and um some of the streets arein steps some of them are just flat andsome of them have got um like serrationcut into the marble so so that when thehorses are pulling carts they don't slipon on the Slick surfaces and as you godown the street you see on left andright you have these columns and thosecolumns were basically covered umcovered archways and so beside thestreet you have this long mall andunderneath those columns just to theright and left you'd have stores wherepeople could buy whatever they wantedlike a one modern day Walmart there onthe screen you have one of the publictoilets on the right and you would sitthere there would be a trench underunderneath where you were sitting andthere would be a slave down therebrushing all the human waste away and infront of you there's that little Channeland you would be given a stick with asponge on it to clean yourself aftergoing to the restroom and um I don'tknow how long people would spend inthose restrooms but this is how theywould do it back in the day and that bigbuilding with the with the facade that'sactually the library of Ephesus thelibrary you can still go there you canwalk around it today and it actually hadthree stories we only have two left nowum but uh in that Library they hadScrolls and parchments from all aroundthe world it was a center of learningwhen the when the gospel was preached inEphesus in Acts chapter 19 the newbornChristians they didn't donate theirbooks of magic to the library which theycould have done they burnt them in thestreets all right and that was worthapproximately 5 to $6 Million worthtoday in cash terms what they burnt inthe streets they could have donatedthose books of the occult to the librarybut they didn't they destroyed themcompletely there within the the coveredum walkways beside the main road thatgoes through Ephesus you have thisbeautiful floors that they've put downand you've got the shops on the rightand then the picture on the right asthey excavate into the sides of thehills they discover that the peoplethere lived in the lap ofluxury they had um floors with mosaicson them they had um the the the heatingsystem was hot air under the under theflooring it was pretty amazing stuff andthey had lapis lji and and otherpressure stones that they were walkingon and you had Condominiums two or threestory Condominiums um the floors had umtiles and mosaics on them as you seehere the walls were covered with marbleor with plaster and had patterns uponthem and uh you know these were asluxurious condos as you would find todayand this was a center where people livedum it was a trading City they had thewealth and they built some incrediblebuildings there you have I'm not surewhy that lady is in the picture on theleft but uh the human lady anyway butthe lady behind her she is one of thethe um the donors for the library andyou notice that she had a a headcovering on her head do you seethat because back there in in theancient GRE Romano world if a woman wasa lady of the night she would wear herlong hair uncovered in public that was asign that she was a lady of the lightand if you were a respectable marriedwoman then you put a head covering onyour head all right so when Paul says tothe ladies in these churches like I needyou to wear a head covering it's becausehe didn't want people to think that allthe Christians were prostitutes allright there's a very good social reasonwhy he's explaining that and the statueon the right is the statue of emis orDiana of the Ephesians so this then wasEphesus it was a a global trading centerwhere people lived in relative luxuryand if you want to know um what kind ofintellectual caliber they had when Paulwrote the book of Ephesians to theChurch of Ephesus he expected that theywould understand what he was talkingabout which meant they had the time andthe mental capacity to Eng engage in themost Sublime Reflections on the natureof God they were smart people they werespiritually in tuned people they werewealthy people they were they had a longhistory with the occult and they were atrading nation and there on the screenyou have the um the the amphitheaterthere and you can go and stand in ittoday and you can see about 5,000 peoplein the amphitheater and you can speak atthe bottom as I'm speaking here and withno um PA system people can hear you atthe very top of the amphitheater theAcoustics are absolutely perfect and sothis is where they cried great is D ofthe Ephesians for two hours the mob andthey had to tell Paul don't go into thatAmphitheater CU they tear you apart sothis is where that particular eventhappened you can go there and walk onthe on sit up there and you can listento people reading out from the scripturemany Christians go and read read outfrom the scriptures there so this thenwas Ephesus and what was the uh Ephesuswhat was the message to the first ofthese seven churches and this is whatJesus says he said to the angel of thechurch in Ephesus writes and the angelsthose are the leaders of the church theword angel anglos can either mean anangel like a a Heavenly Angel it canalso mean a messenger from God or aleader of the church so this is amessage to the leaders of the Church ofEphesus write this these are the wordsof him who holds the Seven Stars in hisright hand that is Jesus Christ whowalks among the seven golden lampstandsthat is Jesus does not abandon hischurch Jes uh members May abandon theirchurch but Jesus does not abandon hischurch Jesus says this I know your Worksyour toil and your patient endurance Iknow that you cannot endure or tolerateevildoers you have tested them who claimto be Apostles but are not and I foundthem to be falsely false I also knowthat you are enduring patiently andbearing up for the sake of my name andthat you have not grown weary but I havethis against you says Jesus what does hehave against them he says you haveabandoned the love you had at firstyou've abandoned your first loveremember then says Jesus from what youhave fallen repent and do the works youdid at first if not I will come to youand remove your lampstand from its placeunless you repent yet this is to yourcredit you hate the work of the nianswhich I also hate let anyone who has anear that is not just the Church ofEphesus but ston toow church as well letanyone who has an ear listen to what thespirit is saying to the churches and toeveryone who conquers that is puts intoplace and puts into practice thewarnings and commands of Jesus in thismessage Jesus says I will give youpermission to eat from the Tree of Lifethat is in the paradise of God it's abeautiful promise yes so how do wesummarize this message well Ephesusmeans desirable and it represents thefirst love experience of the apostolicchurch and they would do well toremember their first love experience theApostle Paul writes in Ephesians 1 verse5 he said I have heard of Your Love inthe Lord Jesus and your love towards allthe Saints and the Apostle Paul goes onto describe in the book to the Ephesianswhat losing your first love looks likein practice if we drop to the book ofEphesians this is what Paul describes aswhat it looks like to lose your love forGod and essentially when you lose yourlove for God you lose your love forfellowHumanity when you have love for God youlove your fellow Humanity inparticularly your brothers and sistersbut if you lose your love for Godtherefore you lose your love for fellowhumanity and so the Apostle Paul whoalso writes letters to the Church ofEphesus describes how they recapturetheir love for God he says there so thenputting away falsehood let us all speakthe truth to our neighbors for we aremembers of One Another We're members ofthe body of Christ be angry but do notsin do not let the sin go down on youranger and do not make room for the devilwhen there is unresolved anger in thechurch people separates and allows thedevil to sweep in he goes on thievesmust give up stealing rather than letthem labor and work honestly with theirown hands so as to have something toshare with the needy let no evil talkcome out of your mouths but only what isuseful for building up as there is needso that your words may give Grace tothose who hear remember Jesus givesgrace to the Church of of Ephesus and weare to be speakers of Grace one toanother he goes on to Sayo not grievethe holy spirit of God with which youare marked with a seal for the day ofredemption put away from you allbitterness and wrath and anger andwrangling and slander together with allmalice and be kind to one anothertenderhearted forgiving one another asGod in Christ has forgivenyou so if you want to know how to regainyour first love as an individual and asacongregation hear the word of God putaway all bitterness and wrath and angerand wrangling and slander together withall malice and be kind to one another betender-hearted to one another forgiveone another why because God in Christhas already forgivenyou if we cannot live the gospel amongourselves then our proclamation of theGospel has littlecredibility the gospel is a Ministry ofreconciliation between man and God andbetween war and humanity and so we areto live the gospel in our own lives andthat means working for Unity within ourlocalcongregations lost love for God wasmanifest in lost love for fellowbrothers and sisters in Christ and soJohn includes a warning here unless theyRepent Jesus will remove their lampstandso being a church member does notnecessarily guarantee the gift ofsalvation but this is a church thathates the works of the nians and whowere the nians well they were people inthat first century who claimed to beChristian believe but believe believethat faith in Jesus released them fromobedience to the Ten Commandments nowthere are many Christians take thatpositiontoday that having faith in Jesus Christabsolves you from obedience to the morallaw of the Ten Commandments as they werefree from the moral law of the TenCommandments the inevitable result wasthey lapsed into immorality debaucheryand the eating of food offered to idolsand so the final words of the letter tothe Church of Ephesus include a rebuketo the nickan heresy it says this toeveryone who conquers I will givepermission to eat from the Tree of Lifethat is in the paradise of God now thenians taught back then um as did thegnostics the word Gnostic the word umthe Greek word for knowledge is gnosiswe get the word agnostic from that ifyou're agnostic it means you have noknowledge about whether God exists ornot if you're atheist it means you donot believe in God the word a meanswithout so AOS that means without Godagnosis means without knowledge we getthe words atheist and agnostic there andso in the time of when uh John waswriting this there were many people thatsaid that Jesus came in the spirit buthe did not come in theflesh they recognized the Divinity ofChrist but they denied the humanity ofChrist and these days that situation hasreserved reversed people accept thatthey accept the humanity of Christ theyexcept he literally came to planet Earthbut they denied the Divinity of Christso all that's happened is we reversed weaccept the Divinity or accept thehumanity of Christ but not the other andso in this promise from Jesus to theChurch of Ephesus he says I will if youconquer I'll give you permission to eatfrom the Tree of Life that is in theparadise of God so Jesus affirms thatthe physical act of eating is a blessingfrom God and that the physical creationis in is in and of itself intrinsicallygood a response to the agnostics and thejewelist of his time who said that thespirit is good but the flesh is badesJesus also affirms the literal nature ofthe Tree of Life which means he upholdshe upheld the historicity of the BooksofMoses he upholds the historicity of theBooks of Moses particularly the Book ofGenesis Genesis is not myth it is realbecause there was the Tree of Life atthe beginning of scripture there is theTree of Life at the end of scripture andin the middle of scripture you have thetree of Jesus Christ Calvary whichbrings life to all who look to it infaith trees are significant throughoutscripture so this is the first messageto the church amongthe uh the Church of Ephesus so let'scome to the nextChurch get my things right heresmna so smna is the next Church thereyou have an an underwater an underfloorum Mall um they had underground mallswhy did they have underground mallsbecause they didn't have to they didn'thave air conditioning so they dug theirmalls into the ground so that you hadthat you were cooled by the naturalcoolness of the ground so these weresmart people back then so this is anunderground mall you can walk through tothis day and there you see some of it onthe right those are some of the thepillars and the columns that they hadback then in Smyrna and um they havesome more of the pillars and the columnssome of these are marble some are just oStone they're overlaid with marble anduh this is on the aian sea there it isit's by an inlet it's very close to themodern city of ismir there's the moderncity of is there from ancient smna sowhat do we know about smna it was builtby the Greeks about 1,000 BC it wasdestroyed in about 600 BC and then oneof Alexander the Great's generals whenAlexander the Great died a guy known aslakus he rebuilt it in the year 200 BCand so there are themes of life anddeath permeate this particular letter tothis particular Church um how what do Imean by that it says there andto theangel of the church in Smyrna writethese are the words of the Alpha and theOmega that is Jesus Christ who was deadand who came to life that is you live ina city that was destroyed but it has nowcome to life once again and Smyrnarepresents the persecuted Church of theRoman Empire Jesus goes on to say I knowthe slander on the part of those who saythat they are Jews and are not but areof the a synagogue of Satan do not beafraid for what you're about to sufferbeware the devil is about to throw someof you into prison so that you may betested and for 10 days you will haveaffliction be faithful unto death and Iwill give you the what the Crown of Lifelet anyone who has an ear listen to whatthe spirit is saying to the churcheswhoever conquers will not be harmed bythe second death so this theme of lifeand death runs through the message tothe Church of Smurda II of the sevenchurches and just after John wrote thisbook um the Romans started a very Fiercepersecution of the Christians all aroundthe Mediterranean Basin from 100 AD to313 ad there was fierce persecutionagainst Christians and it climaxed withthe persecution of an emperor known asdiales from 303 to 313 ad many peoplewere tortured and died for their faithand when we come to the Council of NAAin 325 ad um almost all of the Bishopswho came there from the MediterraneanBasin almost every one of them wasmutilated they lost eyes they'd hadtheir tongues pulled P out they've beenthey arms um limbs chopped off they'vebeen thrown to lions and they some ofthem had survived it uh when the theBishops came together the lead theoverseers of the house churches aroundthe Mediterranean Basin came togetherthey bore in their bodies the marks ofpersecution in ltia there was a LutheranSeminary and when somebody applied tobecome a Lutheran Pastor before 1990nobody really asked why do you want tobe a Pastor because to be a pastor inLuth in under the Soviet Union era meantyou were at risk of being imprisoned orexecuted but if you went to the Seminaryafter 1990 they decided they had to putin place an interview process to figureout why he wants to be a pastor becausenow there was no longer the threat ofdeath if you became a Lutheran Pastorthe reason that Catholic Cardinals readthose red capes you've seen those redcapes on the Cardinals it's a symbolallegedly of their willingness to shedtheir blood for the sake of the GospelEl and this goes all the way back to theCouncil of NAA when the Bishops cametogether um their bodies bore the theimpact of Mutilation disablement andblindness so this is a this is a messagegiven to a church one of those sevenchurches where they were about toexperience uh ferocious Romanpersecution this is a message given tothose who are facing persecution fortheir faithtoday that Jesus is the first and thelast it means he has the last last saywhat happens to you no matter what thisworld may day to say to you Jesus knowsthe beginning from the end and he willhave the last say when it comes to hispersecuted children Jesus was dead andhe's come to life again it means even ifyou pay the ultimate price if you are inChrist you have the promise that youwill rise again when Jesus comes againdeath is not the ultimate and finalpenalty this government can impose uponyou the most the government really cando is take your life but when you're aChristian you know that Jesus can givelife again then you can smile in theface of thedevil this is a church that's about togo through a fearsome test a fearsometest and affliction now some of you arefamiliar with the book The martydom ofpolycarp and if you've never read thatbook I'd encourage you to read it youcan download it on Google the guy's nameispolycarp it's spelled as it is written po l y c a r p polycarp and he was thebishop of smyna in uh between up to 1505 ad and he was a pupil of the ApostleJohn and he was the most famous otherthan the Apostles of the early Martyrsof the early church he served as thebishop of Smyrna and his martyrdom isone of the most well documented umevents of that era he was arrested in155 ad on the charge of being aChristian and he was brought before theRoman governor of Asia Minor down therein Ephesus and the Roman conso took pityupon this gentle old man who wasstanding before him this 86y old man andhe urged polycarp to Proclaim Caesar isLord and by then in order to hold theRoman empire together everybody had toum offer some incense to a statue ofCaesar and say uh Kaiser krios whichmeans Caesar is Lord but the Christianswould refuse they would say no Yus cuosJesus is Lord we will not say Kaisercuos so let's say in America today witha diverse Nation we have the Pledge ofAllegiance on the flag back then theywould hold the glue that held the empiretogether was the Adoration and worshipof Rome and in particular of theEmperors themselves and so the RomanGovernor said to this old 86y old man hesaid if you will simply say Kaiser cuosCaesar is Lord I will let yougo and you can read the testimony ofpolycarp onGoogle he had the option of escapingtorture and death but he refused andthis is what he said 80 and6 years Ihave served Christ and he never did meany wrong how can I now blaspheme myking who savedme he refused to deny his faith in Jesusas Lord and so he was condemned to dienow there was some bureaucrat in the inthe governor's office who said that itwas after 3:00 in the afternoon andapparently it was against the Roman lawto throw someone to Lions after 3:00 inthe afternoon I'm not sure why maybethey were doing you know um intermittentfasting for the Lions I have no idea butanyway you could not execute somebodyafter 3:00 in the day by eay throwingthem to Lions so instead he was burntalive at the stake and you can read thattoday on Google and it's called themarom of polycarp polycarp died for onereason his unyielding faith in the LordJesus Christ now we view polycarp as amartyr but what is amartyr the word marus that's the Greekword underlined the the Modern Englishword Marta martus was someone who gavetestimony in a court of law you were awitness and a witness was one who gavetestimony in the court of law knowingthat it may have ultimate or terminalconsequences for the person giving thattestimony so a martyr in the scripturesis not someone who dies for his or herfaith a martyr in New Testament terms isone who lives for theirfaith and who's ready to accept whateverconsequences may come from living out agenuine expression of their Christianfaithso I want to be a martyr not because Iwant to die but I want my life to be agenuine expression of a born againChristlikeindividual and we are called to beliving Martyrs not dead Martyrs we arecalled to be living Martyrs today forJesus Christ not just to say I'm aChristian live that Faith within thefour walls of Sabbath morning churchwhere it's comfortable and convenient todo so we are called to be livingwitnesses to our faith in Jesus Christwherever we may live our lives in ourworkplaces on social media with ourfriends in our schools people need toknow that Christians or followers ofJesus the Christ are fundamentallydifferent to the Fallen ways of thisworld and there are too many peopletoday they will they say I will be aliving witness within the safe space ofSabbath morning but when I get out theremy speech my language My Lifestylereflects the secular world out there andI'm going to do that because I don'twant any push back on mepersonally but how are people to knowthere is a savior who transforms livesif we're not willing to testify to God'sgoodness in our lives so I want toencourage you today do not be a sleepingmartyr but be a living martyr for JesusChrist faithful to whatever he has donefor you in your life regardless of thesocialconsequences so in this letter to theChurch of smyna Jesus is speaking tothose who confess him as Lord todayregardless of the consequences to yourpersonal life to your career to yourProfessional Licensing to your studiesto your financial or your socialprospects we have to make achoice what are the gods of ourlives and in the last three years manypeople had to make a choice didn't theyam I going to follow my conscience or ismy career so important that I willsquash myconscience I'm not making any commentsabout whatever decision you made today Rall still in the Lamb's Book of Life bythe grace ofGod but the fact of the matter is thisworld will put pressure on you to denyyour faith one way or the other and thatpressure point comes at the church indifferent ways in every generation inthe 1920s it was the issue offundamentalism in the 1930s and 40s itwas the issue of evolution the 1950s and60s it was the onset of the sexualRevolution now it's critical gendertheory in particular and in everygeneration Satan attacks the church andwe have to decide what we stand for andwhat we believe and are we going to liveour faith regardless of what the worldout there may say tous so so we need to understand our faiththe times in which we live and to knowwhat the scripture reveals about the theattacks of Satan upon our church todaythe good news about this message ofJesus the Church of chur Mona is that inconfessing Jesus as Lord today we havethe assurance that when Jesus comesagain in the Clouds Of Glory he willconfess us as his children before thewatching Universe he will state that weare in the Lamb's Book of Life and wewill receive the crown of life it's anincredible prize eternal life and forthose of you who are young you may notthink eternal life is such a big dealbut let me tell you this life goes likethis and if and when you have childrenlife goes likethis like you have a child and the nextthing your child's gone to college whathappened to those 20years and then when your child goes tocollege you start to think well you knowis this all there is tolife and when you get gray hair and youknow by the age of like 18 most of ourbodies start to go downhill after thatage but sorry to those who are over theage of 18 but as we get older we startto think about matters of Eternalconsequence and eternal significance andas our as we can see that our threescore and 10 years are going to come toan end pretty soon we start thinkingabout eternal life do I have theAssurance of eternallife In this passage here Jesus promisesa Crown ofLife a beautiful thing a Crown of Lifeto those who obey his teachings in thisletter to the Church of SMA in a hostileworld will you be a living witness forJesus Christyou need to make achoice if you call yourself a Christianbut you are not a living witness forJesus Christ you may not receive thatCrown of Life and you may be harmed bythe seconddeath it's either one or theother so if you are facing a test inyour life today if you're facinghostility at work or with yourprofessional body or whatever it may bewant who encourage you today to Covenantbe faithful to what the holy spirit isimpressing upon your conscience liveaccording into your conscience do notlive according to lies you will retainyour humanity and your human dignity andyou will receive that Crown of Life sothen we come to the third message theChurch of pergamum now pergamum was thecapital of the Roman province of Asiathe the administrative Capital not thebusiness Capital that was Ephesus andthey had a very large Library when yougo to pergamum today as you see on thescreen here you have to go up a Gonda umall the way up to the top of a steepmountain and the mountain is very steepto get to the city of pergamum it's justup there North on the the aian coast youcan see in the picture to the left someof the sea just behind us there sopergamum was a major city it was aninfluential City it was anadministrative Center it was like CRA isto Australia for instance Sydney is thebusiness Capital CRA is theadministrative Capital so is ismir orEphesus was the business capital Kpergamum was the political capital ofthe province of Asia this is whereparchment was first manufactured it wasalso had a temple to Augustus and it wasa focal point for persecution ofChristians so here you have a a map ofthe top of that mountain and it wasbasically a series of public um templesand administrative buildings and thereyou can see some of those temples todaythey're large they're imposing they'reimpressive um they're very large some ofthem actually and some of thosebuildings are still standing and thereyou have an Amphitheater that's cut outof the side of the Steep Hill now thatpicture doesn't do it justice but thatis at about 60°if you don't have a good head forHeights don't go and sit in thatAmphitheater it's almost like straightdown on a steep steep hill this is theancient city of pergamum and so what isthe message to the Church of pergamumthis is the message from Jesus he saysthese are the words of him who has thesharp two-edged sword I know where whereyou are living where Satan's Throne isit was a center of idol worship that isthe worship of demons yet you areholding fast to my name and you do notdeny you did not deny your your faith tome even the days of Antipas my M witnessthat is the word martyr my faithful onewho was killed among you where Satanlives that is Antipas lived his faithand he died for his faith but Jesus goeson I have a few things against you youhave some there who hold to the teachingof balum who taught baac to put astumbling block before the people ofIsrael so that they would eat foodsacrificed to idols and practicefornication so just before theIsraelites enter the promised land um inin the book of Deuteronomy and then innumbers um uh the um balum a falseprophet was hired to come and curse thepeople of Israel because the Canaaniteswere afraid of them and when instead ofcursing Israel he blessed them so thethe the Pagan King BAC he arranged forthe women of the moite women to enterthe camp of Israel and basically toseduce the men into one large orgy thereon on the bank of the River Jordan andso the last sin The Last Temptation OfGod's people before they enter thePromised Land back in the time of Joshuaand Moses was was sexual perversion andimmorality that is the sin that thatwe're talking abouthere Jesus goes on so you also have somewho hold to the teaching of the nianswho engaged in sexual immorality whybecause they said the spirit is good theflesh is bad if we just focus on thespiritual then we can do we can do whatwe want with our bodies hence they endedup in sexual immorality so Jesus saysrepent then if not I will come to yousoon and make war against them with thesword that comes out of of my mouth thatany anyone who has an ear listen to whatthe spirit is saying to the churches toeveryone who conquers I'll give some ofthe Hidden manner I'll give a whitestone on the white stone is written anew name that no one knows except theone who receivesit so Satan could not destroy the thethe church through persecution that wasthe Church of SMA so now historically heattacks the church through somethingmuch more Insidious through compromiseand sexual immorality it is easy torecognize overt persecution and todefend against it it is hard to defendagainst The Temptations of affluence andsexualimmorality a famous leader in RomaniaRichard V brand said in his experience95% of Christians Will Survive physicalpersecution but 95% of Christians willnot surviveaffluence because affluence leads tomoral compromise because affluence leadstoIndulgence and Indulgence leads topushing of the moralboundaries so compromise with seductiveteachings or immoral practices is harderto recognize and much harder to defendagainst Than Physical persecution theChurch of pergamum tolerates those whouphold the teachings of balum balumattacked the Israelites at balp innumbers 25 by sending in moobit womenwho seduce the Israelites into sexualimmorality and idolworship so Jesus speaks here tocompromised and Confused Christians notnecessarily to persecuted Christians butactually both of them are under satanicattack if Satan can't get you throughlosing your first love if he can't getyou through physical persecution he'sgoing to get you through moralcompromise and so Jesus speaks toChristians who are living in sexualconfusion you might say the sexualrevolution of today or the lgbtqmovement now recognizing the dangers ofimmorality the Council of Jerusalem inActs 15had explicitly warned Gentile Christiansto avoid sexual immorality and foodoffered to Idols or food with blood init but in pergamum paganism and errorand immorality were now mixed with truthand Jesus is Calling compromisedChristians in pergamum to repent theymust again learn to distinguish truthfrom error Why by using the word ofGod the repentant will eat says Jesusthe hidden manner what is that hiddenmanner Jesus discusses it in John 6 itsays there are this is uh the Peoplespeaking to Jesus they say our ancestorsate the manner in the wilderness as itis written he gave them bread fromHeaven to eat so mana and bread are usedin a synonymous manner here then Jesussaid to them very truly I tell you itwas not Moses who gave you the breadfrom heaven or the manner from heavenbut it is my father who gives you thetrue bread from heaven for the bread ofGod is that which comes down from heavenand gives life to the world they said tohim sir give us this bread always andJesus said to them I am the bread oflife whoever comes to me will never behungry and whoever believes in me willnever be thirsty so that means that toFeast on the hidden manner is to Feaston the teachings of JesusChrist to pull our lives back from theconfusion of the modern day PacificNorthwest the moral confusion and Chaoswe are to repent of anything that goesalong with what's out there and we tofeed on the word of God because when weallow the word of God to run over ourminds every day that is how Jesuspurifies and cleanses his church for thefinal translation Ephesians chapter 5the Christ cleanses the bride throughthe washing of the water of theword so if you are engaging or you areparticipating in the modern sexualRevolution out there God is calling youto repent of that today and he'spromising that if you feed on the wordof God God will change how you think andhe will sanctify you from the insideout now I mentioned this last last nightI mentioned it again when I discovered acouple of months ago that AdventistHealth West is now doing genderaffirming care I washorrified it'sappalling this is the sterilization andmutilation ofminers that's what it means don't beconfused don't be put off by thelanguage that the the language that isused when the Nazis had their meeting inVan in 1941 to plan the final solutionto kill all the Jews of Europe they didnot say they were going to Recs thefinal they did not say in writing we'regoing to kill all the Jews of Europethey used Bland administrativelanguage special treatment relocationcenters transport centers Railroadschedules unless you knew what they weretalking about you wouldn't know whatthey were talking about and today wecover the most heinous of sexual sinsand abuse of our children in our societywith this nice sounding language likegender affirming carewe are stripping our young people of theimage of God which is the ability toreproduce and replacing it with theimage of Satan because Angels cannotreproduce it's an appalling thing thathere in Portland aen health Westparticipates in gender affirming careand God will bring judgment on those whodo this thing God will bring aneverlasting judgment on those who messwith the children of Jesus Christ repentthen says Jesus if not I will come toyou soon and make war against them witha sword of my mouth we ask for God'sblessing on us in the Pacific West Coastbut Jesus I'll will make war on youbecause of what you're doing to mychildren I hope I get invited back hereoneday the repentant will eat of a willreceive a white stone now in Romanjudicial proceedings if you were guiltyyou were given a black stone and if youwere innocent you when you wereacquitted you received a white stone soto receive a white stone means you aredeclared innocent of all charges judgesit's a beautifulimage now everybody has um judgment andcrisis in their life the Greek word forjudgment is Crisis crisis we get theword crisis from that so you come intocrisis literally means that you comeinto judgment but the Greek word forcondemnation is crima we get the wordcriminal from that okay so everybodycomes into judgment but in Romans 8:1says there is therefore no condemnationthere's no criminal criminality forthose who are in Christ Jesus do youfollow that we all come into crisis butnone of if you're in Christ Jesus you'renot declared acriminal crisis and chrisis and criminin Greek crisis and criminal in Englandin the English languages okay what thispromise from Jesus is saying here isthat if you are in Christ Jesus thatmeans you are living according followingthe life of the spirit rather than thelife of the Flesh and your faith is inJesus as your lord and savior you willreceive a new name from God that means anew beginning in the promise of WalkWith Jesus Christ the new name alsorefers to the name of God which thefaithful members of pergamum held fastto in the midst of their um sexualpersecution and compromise pergamumChristians are thus to be the physicalrepresentation of the invisible God in afallen and immoral society when peoplesee faithful pergamum Christians bear tosee Jesus Christ and they Faithfullyrepresent Jesus in an era of compromisewith sexual sinnow even though these messages weregiven 2100 years ago 250 years ago don'tthey apply to us today absolutely theydo so then we come we are thus invitedtoday to feed on the true manner of Godwhich is Jesus and his teachings as wejourney to our Heavenly home and it isthe teachings of Jesus not Twitter foxor CNN which helps us distinguish errorfrom truth enabling us to remain afaithful witness in a compromised andbroken worldso if you're not reading the word ofGod you know my job as a pastor isencourage you not to follow any Pastoror administrative structure of thechurch my job as a pastor is toencourage you to read the word of Godand align your lives with the word ofGod and it is in reading the word of Godthat God will reveal to you that whichis true and that which is false and ifyou don't know that which is true andthat which is false there's a promise inthere in James 1 that if any is lackingin wisdom he should ask not doubtingthat he shall receive and it wisdom willbe given to him from on high and thewisdom that God gives in James 3 isgentle and peaceful and makes forbuilding up the body ofChrist so the messages of Jesus go on gtoyra the fourth church now this islocated on a main Highway where twovalleys meet and I've only got onepicture of thyra because there's almostnothing left of thyra today but thisthis is these are the ruins of ancientthyra now in this uh this highway wherethe two valleys meet um there was somecalled mad Roots it's a local plant wasgrown that could be processed into avery rare color it was the color ofpurple color purple was the color ofroyalty and the color of the Romansenators in the Senate of Rome Lydia thebusinesswoman who accepted Jesus in theGreek city of Philippi sold purple Goodsthat she obtained from thyra acts chap16: 11-15 thyra was known for itsworship of the God tynos who was knownas the god of the sun and as such Jesusrepres presents himself as one superiorto the god of the sun it says therethese are the words of the Son of Godwho has eyes like a flame of fire andhis feet are like burnished bronze so tothe Christians who living in thyra whoused to statues of the son God Jesusappears as the ultimate sonGod Jesus outs signs the son God himselfJesus is commending the thyra Christianshistorically for their works of loveFaith service and patient endurance hesays this I know your Works your loveyour faith your service and patientendurance I know that your last worksare greater than the first but I havethis against you you tolerate that womanJezebel who calls herself a prophet andis teaching and beguiling my servants topractice fornication and to eat foodoffered to sacrificed to Idols I gaveher time to repent but she refuses torepent of her fornication beware I amthrowing her on a bed and Those whocommit adultery with her I am throwninto great dist distress and unless theyrepent of their doings and I will strikeher children dead it's pretty seriousstuff and all the churches will knowthat I that is Jesus I'm the one whosearches minds and hearts that isnothing in your life is hidden fromJesus and I will give to each one of youas your Works deserve but to the rest ofyou in thyra that is the faithfulChristians do not hold to this teachingwho have not learned what some call theDeep things of Satan to you I say I donot lay on you any other burden onlyhold fast to what you have until I comeand to everyone who conquers andcontinues to do my Works to the end Iwill give authority over the Nations torule them with an iron Rod as when claypots are shattered even as I alsoreceived Authority from my father to theone who conquers I will give the morningstar that anyone who has near listen towhat the spirit is saying to thechurches so the the persecuted so thethe Church of Ephesus who've lost theirfirst love is replaced historically bythe church of Smyrna which was theperson uted church under the Romans ThatWas Then replaced by the compromisedChurch particularly of sexual immoralityand then we come to the Church of theMiddle Ages this is the era of the papalSupremacy in the 1260 years it's the eraof Peter Waldo who established the wenanJohn Wickliffe John hus and MartinLuther and Jesus says to this churchhold fast to what you have hang on to itdespite all that is happening around youwhy because the persecuted Church ofSmyrna persecuted from the outside hasmerged evolved into the the um the thecompromised Church of pergamum which hasaccepted sexual immorality and becauseshe's accepted sexual immorality the thecompromised Church of pergamum is nowthe cruel Church ofthyra and we have that same thing todayif you do not celebrate what wecelebrate we will destroyyou is that notright when people claim sexual Freedomthey also claim the right to destroythose who deny or question their sexualFreedom if you don't celebrate with usif you do not march with us then we willdestroy you so now the era of compromiseis devastatingly worse the compromise ofpergamum that was sexual immorality andidolatry came from balum on theoutside compromise has now matured inthe Church of thyra to where Jezebel isnow on the throne the church is now aunion of church and state heresy isbacked by civil Authority intoler ofTruth and persecution of the Saintscharacterizes this church in this erathe world is plunged into violence theCrusades the Inquisition the slaughterof the albigensians the persecution ofthe waldensians the rack and the thumband the martyr's death at the stake thisis the era of Fox's book of Martyrs andJesus reminds the Christians of thyrathat while they sit in judgment on hisSaints at persecuting Church judges theinnocent of God that Jesus is theultimate judge himself he said says andall the churches will know that I jesusam the one who searches minds and heartsI'll give to each of you as your Worksdeserve so to Christians who've beenpersecuted by the church in the MiddleAges particularly talking about theMiddle Ages here who were burnt at thestake people like yesterday was theanniversary of the death of witCliffe yesterday was the anniversary ofhisdeath no Tindale sorry Tindale who wasburnt at the stake 483 years ago becausehe dared to translate the Bible intoEnglish burnt on the authority of theChurch ofRome and millions upon Millions diedunder this persecuting Union of churchand state but Jesus says to this churchI'm the one who judges not you and youmay condemn the innocent to death butI'll give you as your Works deserve soGod sees when innocent Christians arehurt both inside and outside of thechurch in an era of corrupt judges andbribed juries and unjust sentence passedon the saints of God Jesus speaks hereas the faithful witness the truewitness there is an old joke amonglawyers that you swear the jury in andthen let the lyingbegin now we have a lawyer laughing atthatone you swear the Witnesses in and thenlet the lyingbegin well Jesus speaks as the faithfuland truewitness like he is the one who knows thetruth of the matter and he's not goingto going to be afraid to speak updespite what this world may say aboutyou and to those who are faithful tothose who refuse to participate in thecorrupt Union of church and state thatthyra has become there is the promise inthis of sharing Authority in theDominion of the universe with JesusChrist and you may say well what'swhat's Jesus talking about there letdrop back to Daniel 7:27 now the Book ofDaniel 7 is the vision in 13 and 14Jesus one as the son of man comes andreceives Heavenly and Global Authoritybut in Daniel 7: 27 this is what it saysit says the kingdom the kingship and theDominion and the greatness of thekingdoms under the whole Heaven shall begiven to the people of the Holy ones ofthe most high their Kingdom shall be aneverlasting Kingdom and all DominionShall Serve and Obey them what thisverse is saying is what Jesus is sayingto the Church of thyra that when Jesuscomes again and the Saints are taken toheaven then we live on the new heavensand the new Earth we're not going to besitting around strumming harps on cloudss we're going to be entrusted with therulership of all theuniverse and why would Jesus UST to youthe rulership of theuniverse because this as far as we knowis the only FallenWorld we have tasted personally thebitterness and pain of sin and we'veexperienced personally the joy and thesweetness of Grace and forgivenesstherefore we know existentially in ourinnermost beings the truth of thecharacter of God there therefore we arethe one's best placed in the universe torepresent him to the unfallenworlds so if you are faithful to Jesustoday and you do not participate in thecoercion of conscience and thecorruption that happens when churchesand States join together as we saw inthe last three years there is thepromise that you will be trusted one daywith with dominion and authority over apart of theuniverse to the one who conquers saysJesus there's the promise of the MorningStar it's an illusion numbers24:17 this is the promise of the secondcoming of Jesus when all corrupt unionsof church and state such as thyra withall their instruments of Oppressiontorture and persecution will be sweptaway oh what a wonderful day that willbe yet Jesus distinguishes in thismessage here between the Falleninstitution of the Church of thyra whichis now a persecuting church and theperseverance and faithfulness of hisSaints who live within that churchmessage is this e even in a fallenchurch God has hisown even in a fallen church God has hisown we may not see them now and you maythink that you only you are left butGod's message to you is what he said toElijah in First Kings 19 there are 7,000others have yet to Bow the KNE to bailso you're not on your own as you arefaithful to the Lord Jesus Christ do notsink into this um pity party and woes meI am the only one that is faithful thatis left no God has his 7,000 and even inwhen there is a corrupt Union of churchand state where the where the churchlegitimizes the mandates of thegovernment and vice versa and peoplelose everything in their lives even whenwe live in that kind of era such as theChurch of thyra during the era of papalSupremacy God has his faithful Saintseven in that time as well and you can bepart of his faithful Saints then as wellas we go through these Church eras andthese Church spiritual conditions werealize that it really doesn't matterwhen you live it really matters who youlivefor in every generation in everyhistorical era doesn't matter where youcome from whether you're male or femaleyoung or old what matters is whether youare listening to and obeying theteachings of Jesus Christ and God knowswho you are and Jesus knows who you areand he's promising in each of thesechurches a personal blessing from himwhen he comes again so then we come tothe city of Sardis the fifth of ourseven churches and it's already 10 P 1I'm going on a bit here aren't I Ibetter kind of speed up on this soSardis was originally located on top ofthe cliff that you see here in thepicture it was a considered itselfimpregnable it sat at top these sheerCliffs and in ancient times there was aproverbially wealthy King called cus andhe made Sardis his capital and he andcoins were gold coins were first mintedin human history on top that Hill therein Sardis it was fabulously wealthy butwhen Cyrus the Great came conqueringafter Babylon in in 547 BC just justbefore he conquered Babylon he came tothis city and he found the city asleepbecause they thought they were securebehind the the sharp Cliffs that thatupon which the city was built Cyrus umsaid to his troops there'll be a specialprize if you can climb that cliff andconquer the city some of his troopsclimbed that cliff and they found thatthe guards on top were asleep at thepost because they thought they wereimpregnable they opened up the gates andthe armies of Cyrus the Great swept intoSardis and it was conquered and it wasdestroyed Sardis dwindled Into Obscurityreminding its surviving population ofthe painful price for their lack ofvigilance so the city was rebuilt in thetime of Christ in the time of the RomanEmpire down in the valley no longer ontop of the cliff these are some of thethese are some of the um these are someof the buildings that you can seethey're well preserved uh this is fromthe 1 and 2nd Century ad 2,000 years old1900 years old Etc these are some of theancient cities of Sardis but as you seebehind this lady here that cliff in thebackground it used to be built on thatCity but that city fell because peoplewere asleep at the door asleep on on theramparts because they thought they weresecure umphysically it's a warning to spiritualoverconfidence it's a warning to thosewho think that somehow just because mymembership is in a certain Churcheverything is right from God this is awarning of of the painful price of alack of spiritual vigilance Revelation3: 1-6 this fifth of the seven churchesrepresents the era of the Reformationfrom Martin Luther on till the end ofthe 1700s this was the era in which thechurch uncovered its source of power andthe power of the church is not found inUnion with the government it is found inFidelity to the word of God that iswhere the power of the church comes fromduring this era Hebrew and Greekscholarship flourished the Bible wastranslated into many languages andwherever it went came personaltransformation and ecclesiasticalReformation but like ancient Sardis thatProtestant Reformation Church they fellasleep in their misplaced sense ofsecurity and the Church of Sardis eventhough it has truth it's a sleepingChurch therefore it's vulnerable toSatan's attacks the dynamism of theReformation stagnated into dogmas thealburg confession the 39 articles theWestminster conf confession the 28fundamentals rather than miningscriptures for truth theologians Focusnow on merely defending the creedlestatements of their particulardenominations Sardis is aself-sufficient Church secure behindstatements her Creeds and herinstitutional churches with all theirmoney and Jesus appeals directly tosleeping Christians in the city and theera of Sardis he says these are thewords of him who has the seven spiritsof God and the Seven Star stars that isJesus Christ I know your works as aProtestant Church of reformation youhave a name of being alive but you arewhat you are dead wake up says Jesus andstrengthen what remains and is on thepoint of death for I have not found yourworks perfect in the sight of my Godremember them what you have received andheard and once again obey it and repentand if you do not wake up I will comelike a thief that is how sadis wasconquered they climbed the the the cliffthey conquered the City by night andJesus says and you will not know at whathour I have come to you yet you stillhave a few persons and saders who havenot soil their clothes they will walkwith me dressed in white for they areworthy if you conquer that is if youwake up and you're alert to the times inwhich you live you will be clothed withthem in white robes now will not blotyour name out of the book of life I willconfess your name before my father andbefore his angels let anyone who has anear to hear let anyone who has an earlisten to what the spirit is saying tothechurches Sardis is a self-sufficientchurch it's a church with the mostperfect creedal statements and officialstatements of protestant belief but it'sa church that isasleep it's self-satisfied it sits areshthe the rampants and the Cliffs of itscreedle statements and it thinks nobodycan conquer them up there but ancientSardis was conquered because cus thegreat climbed up those Cliffs and if weare not if we do not wake up ourselveswe will miss the coming of thebridegroom when Jesus comes again if thefaithful Remnant and Sardis awakes andwalk with Jesus and put on aresh hisRobes of righteousness there is thepromise of eternal life for you and Itoday now nickan Christians already comeacross them in our discussion today theywill not receive eternal life um withtheir denial of the valid of thevalidity of the Ten Commandments norwill balite compromised Christians uhreceive eternal life with their idolsand sexual immorality nor will JezebelChristians from the era of thyra whoUnite Church with state in A persecutedyour union and church with state topersecute the faithful and neither willsleepy Protestants of the Church ofSardis who lazily depend on intellectualagreements intellectual statements ofDoctrine as somehow being their passporttoEternity now I know I'm saying a lot ofthingshere compromised Christians sleepingChristians sexually immoral ChristiansChristians who seek the power of thestate to enforce their wishes those whodeny the validity and the historicity ofthe Old Testament in particular of theTen Commandments such Christians willnot receive eternallife I don't know who or where you arein your walk withGod but my prayer is that you are not acompromised Christian an immoralChristian a Christian who unites churchwith state in support of mandates overconscience or a sleeping Protestanttoday confident that just because youagree to the 28 fundamentals at somepoint in your life in the past yousomehow have the guarantee of eternallifeEzekiel Echoes jesus' call so well as heshares the heart of God towards his ownprofessing people of Israel who werealso sleeping like the Church of Sardisit says this as I live sayith the LordGod I have no pleasure in the death ofthe wicked but that the wicked turn backfrom their ways and live turn back turnback from your evil ways for why willyou die oh House of Israel goes on tosay in Ezekiel 18:32 turn then and liveso if you're a compromised Christian ora Christian who seeks the power of thestate to enforce your views you're aChristian who's playing with andcelebrating sexual immorality or you'resimply a sleeping Protestant today thereis hope for you if you hear the messagesof Jesus to you today we then come toPhiladelphia now there's only a coupleof pictures of Philadelphia this is thesix of the seven churches and uh this isthe only picture I have because there'snot much to see of Phil Philadelphiatoday it's located on a broad Hillbetween two fertile valleys it wasregularly shaken by earthquakes and thephiladelphians would live in booths inthe fields during the long periods ofaftershocks now the name Philadelphiameans brotherly love a name given by acertain king of pergamum called atus IIin memory of his older brother a guycalled King Humanes iiii and inRevelation um37-13 we have the message to the Churchof Philadelphia and the thing you noticeabout the Philadelphian era is thisthere is no rebuke for thischurch of all the seven churches thereis no rebuke for Philadelphia andChristians and what is the message ofJesus he says to the angel of the churchin Philadelphia right these are thewords of the Holy One the true one whohas the Key of David who opens and whoopens and no one will shut who shuts andno one opens that is the door to thethrone room of God I know your Workslook I have set before you an Open Doorwhich no one is able to shut I know thatyou have but little power and yet youhave kept my word and have not denied myname I will make you I will make thoseof the synagogue of Satan who say thatthey are Jews and are not but are lyingI'll make them come down and bow downbefore you feet and they will learn thatI have loved you Philadelphia andChristians why because you kept my wordof patient endurance I will keep youfrom the hour of trial that is coming onthe whole world to test the inhabitantsof the earth I am coming soon hold fastwhat you have so that no one may seizeyour crown if you conquer I will makeyou a pillar in the temple of my God youwill never go out of it I will write onyou the name of my God and the name ofthe city of my God the New Jerusalemthat comes down from my God out ofheaven and my own new name whatincredible blessings from God let anyonewho has an ear listen to what the spiritis saying to the churches now noticethis there is no rebuke for thePhiladelphia church this represents theera of protestant missions in the 18thand 19th century when Bible societieswere established around the world whenthe Bible was translated into ththousands of languages when missionarieswent to Every Nation tribe language andpeople as far as they could it's the eraof Hudson Taylor Amy carmichel adimJudson William Miller and aelan whitethis is their historical era in historynow whereas the second coming comes asan unexpected thief in the ninth forSardis Christians those who asleepacross their their clifftop there andthey lose that their City they losetheir salvation for the PhiladelphiaChurch the second coming was the objectof intense interest and millionsresponded to the midnight cry with faithback in the Mite movement of America andaround the world in the 1840s now aroundthe same time the hdic Jews in Europealso proclaimed the arrival of theMessiah in the year 5603 in the Jewishcalendar otherwise known as 1844 ad thebahai Muslims in Israel proclaimed thatthe bab the door to the hidden Imamwould appear in the year 1260 after thehaira the start of the Islamic Worldwhich current which is actually1844 not to be outdone in the Marxistworld The Atheist World Carl Marxproclaimed from 1844 A Brave New Worldso 1844 is a significant event for Jewsfor Muslims and for Christians and alsofor marxists yet great was thedisappointment of all these groups whenJesus did not return as expected and totheir disappointment comes theaffirmation I am comingsoon hold fast what you have so that noone may seize yourcrown this is the era of of theProtestant Church ofmissions a quote from Sister white Godis calling for men andwomen who are willing to leave all tobecome missionaries forhim and the call will be answered as weheard this morning with our missionaryfrom AFM in every age since the Adventof Christ The Gospel commission hasimpelled men and women to go to the endsof the Earth to carry the good news ofSalvation to those in darkness stirredby the love of Christ and the needs ofthe Lost men have left the Comforts ofhome and the Society of Friends eventhat of wife and children to go toforeign lands among idolators andSavages to proclaim the message of Mercymany in the attempt have lost theirlives but others have been raised up tocarry on the work thus step by step thecause of Christ has progressed and theseed swn in sorrow has yielded aBountiful Harvest the knowledge ofChrist has been extended and the bannerof the Cross planted in Heathen landswhat a beautiful quote this is the eraof the Philadelphia ChurchI want to challenge you this morning asa church I don't know where you are inthese seven churches like what was thecollective Spirit of the Stone TowerChurch but I do know this if this churchgets involved in foreign missions youwill start to experience thePhiladelphia experience because that isthe era that is the church era offoreign missions it means that you havea spiritual concern for people you'venever met and will probably never meetand you're seeking to be the channel ofGod's blessings all around the world ifyou want to grow your church if you youwant to unite your church unite inMission I come from a church VillageAdventist Church and back in about 2014Pastor Kelly preached a sermon it was alarge church and he said our church islike a 747 100 feet above the ground andnobody knows whether it's coming intoland or whether it's takingoff what's it going tobe and so the church decided to unitearound Mission and our church startsdoing the Montana mission trip we opento Brazil Mission Center we buildingchurches and a college in El salor and abunch of other things when a churchunites in Mission and everybody has aplace to serve in Mission then theproblems of the church fade away becausethe problems of the Lost become moreimportant and when you unite in Missionas a congregation and you say what canwe do for our district what can we dofor our part of Portland what can we doto be a blessing to the United Stateswhat can we do to be a blessing to theends of the Earth hopefully to theanimist of Southern Marley as we Chad aswe heard about this morning God willgive you the Philadelphia Churchexperience there is we can't we don'tjust sit where we are today in thesemessages God is calling every Church toturn around a corner and experienceGod's blessings if we will hear hiswords and God can bring those blessingsto this congregation as to any othercongregation that hears thesewords this passagehere let's come back toit it says this because youve kept myword of patient endurance I will keepyou from the hour of trial that iscoming on the whole world to intest totest the inhabitants of the earth so inthese seven letters to the churches ofRevelation there are three trials spokenabout the first was the persecution eraof the Church of Smyrna by the Romanemperors under that persecution Paul andum Peter were executed then you have theGreat Tribulation of the era of thyrathose of the dark ages under the papacyin which millions of faithful Saintsdied but the church the message of theChurch of Philadelphia talks about thefinal time of trouble that will comeupon this world such as never has beensince Nations first came into existencethis is the hour of trial that is comingon the whole world to test theinhabitants of the Earth how then areyou and I to prepare for that finaltribulation Jesus says because you havekept my words of patient enduranceRevelation talks about those who keepthe Commandments of God and have thefaith of Jesus and talks about theendurance of the Saints like I'm goingto believe this no matter what the worldsays to me I'm not giving up my faith inJesus regardless of the consequences I'mgoing to stick true to him because onlyhe can give me eternal life I'm hangingin there no matter what this world takesfrom me they cannot take the promise ofeternal life and because this is achurch that is just hanging on Jesuscounsels his church to face patientlythe trials of everyday life and throughbeing faithful today in the midst ofthat final persecution our character isour pray prepared so that by his gracewe can overcome when the final crisishits planet Earth your actions today ifyou repeat them turn into habitsmultiple habits shape your characteryour character will be revealed in thefinal crisis do not assume that you canbe a leac and Christian today lukewarmneither hot nor cold when the finalcrisis strikes you're suddenly going tostand tall for Jesus Christ it won'twork like that while you have freedomtoday while you have the ability to makegood conscience decisions put thelordship of Jesus Christ into everydecision you make so that your repeatedactions become habits and throughrepeated habits your character is formedso when the final crisis comes knockingon your door as the Apostle Paul says inEphesians 7 6 and verse 13- 14 when thatevil day comes and it will come to yourhome you can standfirm Jesus sets before his Philadelphiandisciples an Open Door which no one isable to shut what is that open door thenext chapter says this after this Ilooked and there in heaven was an opendoor or a door stoodopen most public buildings today haveclosed and guarded doors isn't thatright but the throne room of God inheaven is an open door it is open to allwho wish to enter heaven's door is notguarded by soldiers to keep you out thedoor is open with angels yearning to seeyou walk in there's an open door policyin heaven and the spirit and the bridesay later in this book they say come tothe inhabitants of the earth so Jesuspromises an open door to the throne roomof Heaven for Philadelphian Christiansthrough which we may enter by faiththrough Jesus Christ our Heavenlymediator to find grace and mercy to helpin every hour of need his promise fromelsewhere in the NewTestament so then we come to the last ofthesechurches Leodeia well this is not leoda here thispicture but it's very close to Le hereit's a city called hieropolisnow this cityheropolis um the word hyon means templein Greek polus means City so hieropolismeans the Temple City this is about 5miles away from leoda and it's on theside of a big hill and many people gothere for their holidays to sit in thehot spring water that comes out of theearth it's very hotwater and the water flows over the sideof a hill and that's what it looks likeit's like a ski slope and you're in theMiddle East and you see this the side ofa hill is covered with with white saltsand minerals this is these are the hotspring waters from hieropolis which haveflowed over the hill and it's a verylong wide Hill there's a lot of waterthere and it gathers in a lake at thebottom and from that Lake the water ispiped to the ancient city of leoda butby the time it gets to leoda those hotspring waters are nowlukewarm they've lost their temperatureso that's why Jesus talks about thislukewarm nature of the city of leoda thehot spring waters that people like tobathe in they fall down the cliff andyou can go to that Cliff today Iwouldn't advise you to walk up and downit because you get they they you can doit in your bare feet but your feet willbe sliced walking up and down that it'svery sharp uh and then you come into thelake at the bottom then the water goesto leoda leoda was a wealthy City in thetime of Jesus It was a commercial cityum you can see the ruins today they'repretty impressive and what did theyproduced that's a view from Leo deiaacross the valley heropolis is behind usthere so it's in a beautiful part of theworld and Leo deia had everything goingfor it leoda had produced an expensiveblack wool which was processed andturned into prized garments ofblack it was famous for a medical schooland ey ointment made from localingredients you know if you see anambulance you often have like a polewith two snakes going around it that's atemple of asclepius where they wouldhave serpents and the serpents would beused to like Nest on your face and thatwould theoretically cure you ofblindness so when you when you see thesymbol of an ambulance with those twosnakes this is a pagan symbol when Iwalked through the temple there in leodaum there was a bunch of guys from a newage background singing incantations toSatan and you could just sense thisdarkness and there's this coldness inthe air and so I was with a colleague ofmine who started singing all hail thepower of jesus' name and those guys werevery unhappy with us because the theatmosphere lightened up immediately soleod deia was famous for its medicalschool for treating the blind throughthe god esus it had its own bankingsystem they issued their own currencythey had their own letters of credit itwas a financially self-sufficient CityHot Springs bowed out of the hills a fewmiles away but by the time the waterreached the city of iron Aqueduct it wastepid lukewarm and sickening to drinkingbut suitable for bathing in and so Jesushas some words of rebuke for the Churchof leoda he says the words of the amenthe faithful and true witness the originof God's creation that Jesus is thefaithful and true witness that is hewants you to be saved so he's not goingto beat about the bush about your truespiritualcondition if you really care aboutsomebody you'll tell them the truth oftheir spiritual condition and you'llrisk losing that relationship becausetheir salvation is more important thanyourfriendship if you don't care aboutsomebody you're going to say I'm goingto tolerate what you do and andtolerance is basically a cover word forapathy like I don't care about youreternal life when Jesus saw the RichYoung Ruler he said what must I do to besaved it says in Mark oh forget what itis Mark 10 he says Jesus looked at himand loved him and said if you wish toobtain inherit eternal life sell allthat you have give to the poor and comefollow me so when Jesus loved that youngman he didn't love him and accept him ashe was he loved him enough to say youneed to make a radical change in yourlife acceptis basically apathy about whether youlive or die for eternity love demandsthat we speak the truth so that peoplemay be saved so Jesus appears as thetrue witness the origin of God'screation he says I know your Worksyou're neither cold nor hot I wish thatyou were either cold or hot so becauseyou lukewarm and neither cold or hot I'mabout to spit you out of my mouth foryou say I am rich I have prospered and Ineed nothing yet you do not realize thatyou are wretched pitiable b poor blindand nakedtherefore I counsel you to buy from megold refined by fire so that you may berich not the currency that you issue Icounsel you to wear white robes toclothe you not the black robes that youproduce from your from your the sheepthat you grow there and to keep theshame of your nakedness from being seenand salv to anoint your eyes so that youmaysee they must obtain white robes fromJesus Christ which is later described inRevelation 19 as the righteous Deeds ofthe Saints those righteous Deeds comefrom Christ himself self for he is theLord our righteousness the I Salve isthe gift of the Holy Spirit from John 168-10 leod de as wealth means nothing toJesus it is impure and filled withworthless dross her I Salve May wellsell well in the local Amazon andWalmarts but the lean church is blind toher own spiritualpoverty Jesus has nothing positive tosay about this wealthy self-satisfiedself-sufficient self-righteousself-centered post modernChurch nothing good to say to thischurch we are to buy white robes fromJesus what does it cost to buy theseblessings can Grace love andrighteousness and the Holy Spirit bepurchased from God can you pay money forit can leod deia use her gold to buythese blessings from God the answer isno Isaiah 55 says this ho everyone whothirsts come to the waters and you thathave no money come by and eat come buywine and milk without money and withoutprice Christ gifts are free in terms ofCo of coins dollar notes checks wiretransfers or credit cards yet they costeverything they cost our wholeheart it's easy to pay money it's hardto give ourheart to a wealthyChurch to a self-satisfied church to achurch is financially self-sufficientand has need of nothing materially thegreatest challenge is to give of ourhearts rather than to open our walletbooks our checkbooks the promise fromJesus in 3:20 indicates that God willnever Force his will upon his people beEarnest therefore and repent listen Istand at the door knocking if you hearmy voice and open the door I will comeinto you and eat with you and you withme now this image is often used whenpreachers make an appeal to individualsand there is some truth to that thatJesus is knocking at the door of yourheart maybe today he wants to come in ane meet with you that means wantsfellowship with you that means heaccepts you that he is fine with you hewants to spend time with you but the thethe more important point about this isJesus is outside of the leodanchurch Jesus is outside of the leodanchurch he's trying to get notches intothe door of your heart he wants to beinside the church but the church is soself-sufficient and so self-righteousand so financially wealthy that itsenses no need of theSavior why isthat I tell you why we love prophets aslong as they're 500 yearsdead nobody wants a prophetic voice intheir midsttoday I love the fact that Elijahrebuked Ahab but I wouldn't want Elijahin my lifetoday it'strue we're comfortable with the prophetswhen they dead and buried and we canerect a MIM or a statue in their favorand in their honor but we do not wantthe living presence of the Living Lordas a jealous and a consuming fire ineach of Our Lives because we're scaredof what we're going to have to giveup and so Jesus stands outside theleodan church that's the Church of ourera knocking at the door and he's notpolitely knocking there's like apounding at the door here like guys Ineed to come in you're not going tosurvive unless I come into this churchit's not like a would you let me in it'slike guys open up I'm here at the doorlet me in if you do not let me in and ifyou do not accept the the this rebukefrom me what I'm offering to you youface Eternaldeath and so Jesus comes to his churchwho in a desperate spiritual conditionleod Dean church and he speaks directlyif painfully the emergency of soulsdemands his direct jet loving approachfrom Jesus Jesus rebukes their spiritualself-sufficiency which mirrors their finfinial self-sufficiency leod's Goldsmeans nothing to Jesus it is filled withworthless dross her eye Salve May svewell but she is blind to her spiritualpoverty and the promise of Jesus here inthis passage on the screen Revelation3:20 I am standing at the door andknocking indicates that Jesus will neverforce himself upon his people herespects your Liberty of conscience ourears are to be open to the knocking ofJesus and our own free will is to beopen to the correction of the spirit ofChristare your ears open to the knocking ofJesus are you willing to allow Jesus tochange the course of yourlife not just to like go to SouthernChad to be a missionary but maybe togive up a cherished attitude or ideaPrejudice orbigotry anger that you cherish againstsomebody maybe somebody hurt you in thepast and you feel self-righteous andhappy that you can feel you can have asense of moral indignation at what theydid to you and you don't hesitate telleverybody what a rotten person that isand you just feel so good aboutthis maybe today he's asking you to givethat up because it's a cancer reachingyou from theinside a lack offorgivenessbitternessPrejudicegossip financial and spiritualself-sufficiency these are the problemsof the human heart and at the heart ofthe human problem is the problem of thehuman heart of your heart and of myhearttoday Revelation 3:20 implies that Jesusis outside the doors of lean Church he'sasking to be allowed in he's asking tobe allowed in so that we can be bornagain once again for such L deingChristians there is hope Jesus comesJesus stands Jesus pounds Jesus Waitsand Jesus is hoping the one who loved usand freed us from our sins by his bloodhow will you respondtoday I don't know how you're going torespond I'm going to preach this sermononce here but I'm hoping that thesewords sink into your hearts and you chewupon them for the coming week and comingmonths you don't just say that was anice or a good sermon and go home andyou know eat your pot luuck I'm sayingthese words because these are the wordsof Jesus to you I stand at the door andknock I want to be your friend we needto clean house I can give you eternallife don't mess with the lies of thisworld except a man be born again hecannot enter the kingdom ofGod for with man all things areimpossible but for God all things arepossible you can be born again and youcan be saved even as a leying Christianso what do we say in conclusion heretoday those are the seven churches onthescreen those are the seven spiritualconditions that they have Ephesus haslost their first love forChrist Smyrna is afraid of suffering forChrist pergamum is falling away fromBiblical doctrinal truth and adoptingsexualimmorality thyra is experiencing moraldeparture and coercion of consciencethrough a union of church and stateSardis is a self-sufficient Protestantchurch that is spiritually dead becauseit only lies on its statements of Faithrather than having a living faithPhiladelphia is not holding f as whatthey've had leoda has material wealthbut it is spiritually blind naked andlukewarm do you mat do you match any ofthosedescriptions does your life reflect anyof those seven spiritualconditions if so these books were givenfor you that you might have eternal lifethat Jesus might turn things around foryou so that you might overcome thesecond death so you might have have acrown of life so that your name might befound in the Lamb's Book of Life Jesuscame to Christians have all theseproblems he came because he knows thatthey can yet be saved so can I and socanyou we can still be saved despite havingany of these spiritual difficulties TheBook of Revelation starts with Gracethere it is revelation 1:4 grace to youand peace from him who is and who wasand who is to come that is to Christianswith all these spiritual differdifficulties God is offering his gracetoday and he's giving you an offer ofheavenly peace and the Book ofRevelation ends the very last sentencesays this the grace of the Lord Jesus bewith all thesaints it's beautiful yes we begin withGrace and we end withGrace and we can receive that Grace byfaith and ask the mind of Christ toreceive the mind of Christ so thatChrist will transform us from the insideout and he will give us the gift ofrepent repentance and the gift of faithso that he changes our lives so theyreflect perfectly the image of God ineach one ofus so when was the last time youexperienced God'sgrace when did when did you sing aboutit maybe in the last week Amazing Gracemaybe you heard a sermon about it maybeyou've read a book about it what's soamazing about Grace by Philip yansy is agoodexample when was the last time youexperienced God's grace for yourself hisunmar favor to you when was the lasttime you you overwhelmed with a sensethat God loves me despite of everythingI'vedone and he's coming for me and he'scoming for you and if I will open thedoor of my heart to him today he willcome in and eat with me and I will havefellowship with him and I will not sitin condemnation because there is nocondemnation for those who are in ChristJesus if we turn to the Lord JesusChrist today we have these promises toeveryone who conquers in those earlychurches and to us today God Jesus willgive permission to eat from the Tree ofLife that is in the paradise of God theword Paradise means a four-walled gardenit's a Persian word but that's a sideissue to everyone who conquers they willnot be harmed by the seconddeath you've lost a loved one you'velost a child you lost someone in thepandemic you hope to see themagain you don't want to you don't wantto experience the second death thismessage is for you you want to bereunited with a Lost Child a lost parenta lost brother sister a lost spouseJesus is offering you the chance to seethat lost person again to everyone whoconquers I'll give some of the Hiddenmanner that is the teachings of Jesusand I'll give a white stone that you'llbe declared innocent before the universethat therefore as we are Justified withGod we have peace with God and on thatwhite stone is written a new name thatno one knows except the one who receivesit that God recognizes that everybody inthis room today and watching online hasa unique spiritual experience with Godit's not a cookie cutter approach yourexperience is unique your UPS your Downsyour pains your your highs your lowsyour mistakes your successes God knowsyou as an individual and you willreceive a name in heaven that is uniqueto you that represents who you are andwhat you've been through to everyone whoconquers and continues to do my Works tothe end I will give authority over theNations to rule them with an iron Rod aswhen clay pots are shattered even as Ialso received Authority from my fatherto the one who conquers I will also givethe Morning Star there is a promise thatwhen Jesus comes again we will we willshare in the rulership of the universeand if youconquer you will be clothed like them inwhite robes and I will not plot yourname out of the book of life I willconfess your name before my father andbefore his angels if you conquer I'llmake you a pillar in the temple of myGod you'll never go out of it I'll writeon you the name of my God and the nameof the city of my God the New Jerusalemcomes down from my God out of heaven andmy own newname to the one who conquers I will givea place with me on my Throne just as Imyself conquered and sat down with myfather on his throne if we conquer theproblem of sin today by the grace of Godwe can sit down on the throne of God Godfor eternity with JesusChrist these are prizes worth fightingfor these are prizes that this world hasnothing to compare with what Jesus isoffering us todaywe are Adventists we believe that Jesusis coming again he's coming again soonand he gives these messages to hischurch because he's not willing that anyshould perish but that all should haveeternallife so I want to invite youtoday maybe you gave your life to theLord Jesus Christ in the past but you'vekind of wandered away and you've seenyour life in one of your spiritualcondition in those seven churches ofRevelation if that's you I just inviteyou to raise your hand here todaythat you say yes Jesus I've heard youspeaking to metoday and I've heard your rebuke I'veheard your counsel and I'm covenantingtoday that I will follow what Jesusrevealed to me and impressed upon myheart this morning praise theLord and if you have never given yourlife to the Lord Jesus Christ and youwant to give your life to Jesus Christtoday I'm not sure what to do now do youhave appeals in the church very often Idon't know but I'm only here once so ifyou want to give your life to the LordJesus Christ and receive the blessingsand prepare to be baptized and be bornof water and the spirit and receive thegift of eternal life why don't you comeand we we'll join together at thefrontier anybody like to give their lifeto the Lord Jesus Christ today say Iwant these promises from God I want thegift of eternal life I want to have thatname that no man knows before I want tohave the crown of life I want to eat ofthe tree of life I want to we walk thosestreets of gold I want him to make meinto a newcreation with nobody comes forwardthat's between you and God but I wantyou to know today this God will not seeestriving with you until you die he's notwilling that you perish and if you turnhim down today and said no there arethings in my life I still want God's notgoing to walk away from youtoday first refusal second refusal isnot a final refusal he wants you in hiskingdom God bless you brother God blessyou so I invite you to bow your headswith me today and we're going to ask theLord Jesus Christ to be Lord of each ofOur Lives during these beautiful SabbathhoursusJoy of peace and gentleness generosityandself-control against such things thereis no law against such things there isnoargument except a man be born again hecannot enter the kingdom ofLife father this young boy in thismature man bowed here today we placethem in your hands we ask for theanointing of your spirit upon both ofthem in Jesus when you came todaybecause they were not ashamed of you Ipray that you will not be ashamed ofthem I ask that we claim that promisethat their names will be found in theLamb's Book of Life and Jesus willtestify before a watching universe thatthese indeed are mysons so father we thank you for theblessing of todaymay we never cease to walk with Jesusand Jesus when you come come again inthe Clouds OfGlory please come looking forme please come looking for the two whobowed here thismorning please come looking for thosewho raised their handsearlier and father wherever we are inthis church whatever our spiritualcondition please come looking for usthis is our prayer in jesus' holy nameamenamen God bless you