Video Transcript: Churches

Today we're going to be thinking about churches and what our Lord Jesus Christ says to the churches. So let's begin by the revelation that Jesus gives of himself, and then we'll look again at what he said to the church at Ephesus, but then to all the churches. John says, On the Lord's day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet, which said, Write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze, glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun, shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Then he placed his right hand on me and said, Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one.

I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades. Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands, is this.

The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance.

I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles, but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered, and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you.

You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first.

If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor. You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. This ends the reading of God's word, and God always blesses his word to those who listen.

How does Jesus see churches? What does he see, and how does he assess what a church is like? When we read the book of Revelation, we find out very quickly that Jesus does not necessarily see a church the way others see that church. He doesn't even necessarily see that church the way the church sees itself. When you consider, for instance, the church of Sardis, in the letters that Jesus gives, Sardis has a reputation, a name for being alive.

It's the Hattonan church. It's the church other people want to be like. It is really vibrant.

Except Jesus says, you have a reputation for being alive, and you are dead. So a church is not always what other people think it is. It's not always what it thinks itself is.

The church in Laodicea says, I am rich. I see well. I am well clothed.

And Jesus says, you are blind. You are poor. You are naked.

So, again, self-assessment, our opinion of ourselves as a church, might be pretty high, and Jesus may have a very, very different opinion. On the other hand, there are churches that had reputations that weren't so lofty. For instance, the church at Smyrna was slandered and spoken against, and it was a church that was struggling, and it was known to be poor.

And Jesus says, you are poor, but you are rich. And you are slandered, but I have nothing but good things to say about you. It's ironic that one of the churches Jesus has nothing bad to say about is the church that a lot of people were saying bad stuff about.

Or, when you look at the Church of Philadelphia, it's another church that Jesus has nothing bad to say about. There's only two churches that Jesus has nothing bad to say about, and both of them were not admired. Both of them were not very big.

Both of them were struggling. The church in Philadelphia was a church, Jesus says, I know that you don't have much strength. I know that you're weak, but you're strong.

So, when we ask what Jesus thinks of the churches, we need to be prepared for the fact that he's going to see things different than other people see us, or even than the way we see ourselves. It's interesting, too, that for each of these churches, he addresses an angel. There's been different opinions about that, whether that maybe refers to the pastor of a church, or the messenger being sent to a church, because the word angel can also be translated as messenger.

But I think it most likely that it does simply mean there's an angel for each of these churches. God sends his angels as ministering spirits for a variety of tasks, and one is to be involved in the life of churches. And to each church here, there's an angel that Jesus sends a message to.

And each letter has the same format. There are seven letters, and in these seven letters, there are basically seven parts, and he follows the same format in all of them. First, he says something about himself, and it usually reflects what we just heard from the vision that John saw of the glorified, magnificent, splendid Lord Jesus Christ.

He begins the letter to each church by picking something about himself to say. Then he praises that church, except in the cases where there's nothing good to say. There are a couple of churches that he has nothing good to say about.

Then he rebukes the churches, at least when there's something to rebuke, because there's two of the churches that he doesn't rebuke at all. Then, even whether there's praises or rebukes, he gives some orders. He gives some marching orders of what to do from here, commands.

Warnings of what will happen if those commands aren't heeded. Promises of what will happen if they do listen to the Savior and do heed his commands, good things that are going to happen. And then a final, listen up.

Let him who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. You'll notice that it's Jesus Christ speaking, and then he says this is what the Spirit is saying to the churches. We need ears from the Spirit to hear the voice of the Savior.

In several of the letters, first comes the promises, then the listen up. In other letters, there's first the listen up, hear what the Spirit says to the churches, and then the promise. So, the order is a little different in those, but you'll see that these are the elements of all seven letters to the seven churches.

And one way to approach this would just be to do a series of messages, one on each of the letters to each of the seven churches. I'm going to, that's a good approach. There's a book that I like very much by John Stott.

It's titled, What Christ Thinks of the Church, and it goes through each of those letters in detail. But what I'm going to do today is look at a composite, at all the things Jesus says about himself, then about all the praises that he gives to a church, and kind of get a big picture of what good things you'd want to be looking for in a church. Then the kind of rebukes that he gives to all of the various churches, then the commands, then the warnings, then the promises, and then his listen up.

So, you could do that with each church, and take each of these items. I'm going to instead just take what he says to all of them in each of these areas. First of all, when he comes to each church, he says who is speaking.

He reminds them who's talking, and he often highlights something about himself that that church in particular especially needs to hear. But when you take those things that he says, then you get a fuller picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says to Ephesus that he's the one who holds the stars in his hand and walks among the candlestick.

And we know that the stars are the angels of the seven churches, the candlesticks are the seven churches, so Jesus reminds us that he is the one who controls the angelic powers, and that even though he's in heaven, he's also among the churches right now. He walks among his churches. When he speaks to Smyrna, that persecuted church, he says, I am the first and the last.

I died and rose again. He reminds us of his great resurrection victory. To a church that's been compromising, he says, I'm the one with the sharp two-edged sword.

We need to be reminded that he wields a sharp sword, and that sword can be the word of God as it often is in the Bible, but also his judgments that come upon the enemies of the gospel, but also the churches that heed and compromise with the enemies of the gospel. To another church that's caught up in compromise, he says the words of the Son of God, who has the eyes of fire and the feet of burnished bronze. Once again, he reminds them of his power and his fierceness.

He's the one who holds the seven spirits, which is the way the book of Revelation sometimes speaks of the Holy Spirit of God in his fullness. The number seven represents fullness, and so he not only is the one who controls the angels that deal with churches, but also the Holy Spirit of God as he's manifested in each of these churches. Now, when I mentioned earlier that perhaps God has an angel assigned to a church, that might make you think twice.

You know, in this room there's the people we see, but what if there's also that angel of God that's present among us when we worship? You know, the Bible speaks of that, not just in the symbolic passages of the Bible, such as Revelation, but when Paul is talking to people about how to behave during worship, he says, and also because of the angels. Or when he's giving instruction on how somebody ought to preach, he says, I charge you in the sight of God and of the holy angels. So there is this sense of being gathered when we worship or wherever we go, that there are angels present.

And that ought to be a pretty sobering thought for each of us. But an even more sobering thought is that Christ himself walks among the churches. That the sevenfold Spirit of God is at work among the churches.

That God himself is with us. Let us now adore him, as one of the hymns says. To another church, Jesus says that he's the Holy One.

He's true. He holds the keys. What he opens, nobody can shut.

What he shuts, nobody can open. We sometimes don't want to think of Jesus as having a set of keys. The door is just always open.

But the door is never going to be open unless he opens it. And if he decides to shut it, nobody else is going to open that thing. When the door to the ark was closed, it was too late to get into that ark.

Nobody was going to open it if God shut the door. And so it is, when Jesus Christ has keys, he says, If I open, nobody's going to shut the door of opportunity, the door of salvation. Nobody's going to shut that.

But, if I close it off, don't think you've got other avenues. Don't think you have other keys that are going to get you in. He's the Amen, the faithful and true witness.

The beginning or the ruler over all of God's creation. These are the things that Jesus says about himself to the seven churches. And we need to hear what he says because otherwise it's always imaginary Jesus that we worship.

My Jesus would never do that. My God would never do that. Well, I'm sorry, but you don't own God.

He doesn't consult your imagination on who he's going to be. He is who he is. And so, when we don't like to hear about a sharp double-edged sword in his hand, or these eyes of fire, or keys locking the door, or those passages elsewhere in the Bible where people knock on the door and they're told, It's locked, you're too late.

Nowadays, that's not the way we want to hear Jesus talk, but that's the way the real Jesus talks. And so we need to heed him. And then hear what he says to the churches.

What does he say in praise of the churches? He says some great things to Ephesus, and they are very important things. Ephesus is orthodox. They believe the truth.

And they will not put up with wicked people, or those who claim to have apostolic authority, but don't, and are false apostles. They're upright. They hold to the morals, the way of life taught in the Bible, instead of changing the morality every ten minutes.

When opposition comes, they're steadfast, and they stick with it. And those are things of tremendous value that that church has. To the church in Smyrna, they may be poor, but they're spiritually rich.

And even though they're persecuted, Jesus praises them and has nothing to criticize about them. To those who are in a place that you could call Satan's headquarters, where Satan has his throne in Pergamum, he says, you're faithful amid those attacks of Satan. To those in Thyatira, he says, well, you've got love, you've got faith, you're serving others, you're enduring, and you're sticking with it.

And that, too, is a wonderful and encouraging thing to hear from Jesus, that these things matter to him. Even in a dead church, Jesus says, well, at least there are some in Sardis who aren't spoiled yet, who aren't ruined, who aren't dead. And so, I want to encourage you because, just because overall my message to your church is you're dead as a doornail, that doesn't mean that every individual has to be characterized as dead.

And there are those in Philadelphia, he says, you're strong, you're spiritually strong, even though materially and physically you're weak, and you keep my word. Laodicea, oops, sorry, nothing good to say. But, when you hear the praises that are given to the various churches, that gives us, again, a balanced and beautiful picture of what Jesus is looking for in churches and what he finds that pleases him among his people.

And it's a well-rounded picture. It's not just this virtue, but not that one. It combines orthodoxy and love.

It combines uprightness morally and the willingness to serve others and get involved and bless their lives. It involves keeping God's word and facing hardship. These are the things that Jesus praises in the churches, and these are the things we should be praying for, for our church, and for God to revive in other churches as well as our own.

We don't need to be praying blind. We know what Jesus is looking for. He's told us.

He's told us what he likes. He's also told us what he doesn't like. But he's told us what he likes.

And these seven letters give a very well-rounded picture of what our Lord and Savior wants and prizes when he finds it among his people. And he also then rebukes where there are failings. And oftentimes the failings are that he doesn't find there something that he did find in one of the other churches.

You'll notice that we don't want to just major on one valuable thing and then neglect the others. When he speaks to Ephesus, when you first hear what he says, it sounds like it's just about perfect. At least that's the way it sounds to me because maybe I'm wired in an Ephesus sort of way.

The doctrine is good. And they don't put up with baloney and with the novelties of false teachers. The morality is good.

And they stick with things. They don't give up at the first sign of difficulty. They keep on going.

I mean, for some of us, what more could you say about a church than that the doctrine is sound? They value holiness and good behavior. They don't give up in the face of trial. They keep on keeping on.

Man, what a great church. And Jesus says, you lost your first love. You're not loving me the way you once did.

You're not loving others the way you once did. The love seems to have faded away even while the orthodoxy remains, even while the upright behavior and the high moral standards are held to, even as you keep going and you're diligent, you don't, you're a hard worker. Where's the love? Then there's that church in Smyrna.

There is no rebuke. They're persecuted. They're weak.

And they're faithful. And Jesus does nothing bad to say about them. When he speaks to the church in Pergamum, he says, you, I like some things, of course, that are going on there.

But then he says, you are holding to the teaching of Balaam. And you are tolerating the Nicolaitans. You're a tolerant church.

You're a permissive church. You're an inclusive church. You're an affirming church.

In fact, you're so inclusive and so affirming that you're including and affirming stuff that I hate. I hate the works of the Nicolaitans. I couldn't stand Balaam.

Balaam was the Old Testament figure who for money was going to put a curse on the people of Israel, but God prevented the curse. And when Balaam was on his way there, his donkey spoke to him. He was so dense.

God gave the donkey the power to talk to him because there was a sword waiting for Balaam. And to this church, too, there's a sword waiting, as we'll see in a moment. But this tendency often goes together where you have people that say, hey, you can put together and patch together different religions.

You say, you're kind of like Balaam. Because in the story of Balaam, he can't get the curse to work, so he says, here's what you've got to do to the king who hired him to curse. He says, here's what you've got to do.

You've got to seduce them. You've got to get them sexually involved with your people, and you've got to get them kind of hanging out with your worship and your gods. And if you can get that done, then their god will curse them.

And it worked. Oh, and a footnote, Balaam was killed by the sword later on. He avoided the sword when his donkey talked to him, but the sword got him later on.

But this blending of religions, sometimes the theologians call it syncretism, where you take bits and pieces. Take a book title that says it all, Living Buddha, Living Christ. The person who writes that title tells you everything you need to know.

And there are churchgoers who say, isn't it cool? We're moving into greater depths of understanding. We're seeing how all religions at their very heart are the same. But Jesus is not fond of that worshiping of idols along with worshiping of Jesus, or permissiveness in morality when he has the standard of holiness.

Thyatira has kind of a similar problem. They tolerate. Toleration is a great and wonderful virtue nowadays.

It is not regarded as a virtue by Christ when it comes to the toleration of false teaching and of immorality infecting the church. And so he hates it that they tolerate false, immoral teachers. He wants them to not listen to them, to ban them from teaching there.

And he has those kinds of rebukes. Now, when you look at those, you see that not every church has the same problems. And one of the dangers is that if you don't have one problem, you think you're pretty good.

So you'll get churches nowadays that are what might be kind of labeled liberal or affirming. And love, love, love is, you know, love is what they're all about. Action, social action, and getting involved in activity and helping others is what they're all about.

And they should be. Don't underestimate what Jesus said about love, about being active in serving and helping others. It's a wonderful thing, and it needs to be done.

And it's a terrible thing to lose that love for Christ and for others. But if you're priding yourself on saying, I'm so loving, and part of being loving is you don't make a big deal about doctrine. You don't make a big deal about moral standards.

Come on, love is what Jesus cares about. He cares about both. About the love and about the soundness of doctrine and the uprightness of standards.

And we've seen already the danger of going the other way, where you might say, well, we're really a Bible-believing church and an upright and moral church. And don't give me all that goo about love. We teach the Bible here.

We tell you what God wants, and we make it clear. We make it crystal clear. And we don't back down, and we don't give up.

Well, yeah, those are all very good things. But if the love is lacking, then Jesus says, I'm going to remove your lampstand, because you're not the kind of church I want you to be. So, when we hear what Jesus says to the churches, we need to beware of our own tendency to zero in on what we think we're kind of good at, and those other things don't matter quite as much.

All these things matter. And it's of no help to say, well, I thank thee, God, that I'm not like other men. You know, that was the prayer of the Pharisee looking over at the publican.

And it's not very helpful for a church to say, God, I thank thee that I'm not like that church over there. Our church doesn't have those weaknesses. Well, maybe not.

Maybe you do, and you don't know it. But maybe not. Maybe you don't have those weaknesses.

Maybe you've got your own set of weaknesses that neglect some of the strengths that that church has that you're despising. So, be that as it may, you don't look at the other church at all. You look to the Lord and ask what He thinks of us.

And sometimes it's not even a matter of is there enough love or is there enough doctrine and soundness. Sometimes it's just a matter of dead. He says of the church of Stardust, you have a reputation for being lively, and you are dead.

What's going on there? Well, part of it is that they probably deserved their reputation once upon a time. There are churches that were great churches, and 50 years later, they're running on fumes, and they still think they're great. Once they were alive and powerful, and the name is still on the building, or sometimes you have colleges that are that way that were originally founded, and they have long gone, they're long gone from what they were, but they still have their old reputation.

They still have the name Christian on the college. They still have kind of that reputation that lingers from what a church once was. And we need to realize that past reputation does not make up for current deadness.

The name that a church has is often based on the tradition that it once had. And the theologian Jaroslav Pelikan said, Tradition is the living faith of people who are now dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of people who are now living.

So tradition is a good thing if you remember that living faith of the past, but if you're just banking on that, and all you have now is a deadness, then you have maybe the name still, the reputation still, but not the reality. And the harshest words of Jesus are actually directed at people who, the church that he doesn't say much about this or that in detail, he just says, you're lukewarm. Blech! That's kind of frightening too, isn't it? That you can kind of have a lot of ducks lined up.

You can have a lot, you know, check, you know, orthodoxy check, you know, good standards check. You go down the list, and then you get to lukewarm. Oh, rats.

Because, you know, we just don't have that zeal, that delight, that joy, that relish for the Lord. And Jesus has his harshest words for them. But even there, it's not ending in harshness.

He also has an invitation. So let's listen to those rebukes and realize the dangers of playing a little comparison game where if we're doing okay in one area, that means our church is healthy. And that other one's really unhealthy and stinks because their weakness lies in a different area than in ours.

No, we need to listen to the whole picture of the praises and the whole picture of the rebukes. And then the commands. What does Jesus command? Well, even for those who he has nothing bad to say about, he gives some commands.

And certainly those whom he criticizes and rebukes, he's got some things to say. To those who have lost their first love, he says, remember, remember what you had. Because sometimes there are people who did love the Lord, and they did love other people, and their love was strong, but it waned.

And he says, now remember, and then repent, turn around, renew your love to those who are suffering. And he says to Smyrna, you're suffering, you're facing troubles, and I've got news, it's going to get worse. That was comforting, wasn't it? He says, it's bad, and it's going to get worse.

But, I have nothing against you. And, stay faithful unto death. What a great command to Christians in every time, is just stay faithful no matter what comes at you.

To the church in Pergamum, he just says, repent. You're putting up with the Nicolaitans, you're putting up with Balaam's type of teaching, with that mixing of different religions, and that mixing of different moralities, just stop it. Turn around, repent.

To the church in Thyatira, there are some things that were going on that were good, so he says, hold fast to that. Keep Christ's works, hold on to the love that you were involved in, and the good things you were doing, hold on to that. And, of course, don't keep putting up with the false teachers and the immorality.

To the dead church, Sardis, he says, wake up, recall. You know, there was a reason they had that good name. Once upon a time, their church was something.

Remember what that involved. Wake up, and then strengthen what remains. Because even in a dead church, there is not total loss.

Even in many a dead church, there are things that still linger from the past that could be built up again. There are still people there who have not soiled their robes. And so, even though the church as a whole is in trouble, Jesus says, now those of you who are still faithful, stay faithful, strengthen what remains, build it back up again.

To Philadelphia, again, he has nothing bad to say, but just hold fast to what you have. Hang in there, hold on, hold fast to what you have. And to the lukewarm Laodiceans, he says, you've got to get serious.

Be earnest and repent. Be earnest and repent, and face the fact that you claim to be rich, you're poor, you claim to see well, you're blind as a bat, you claim to be magnificently clothed, you're naked. So, you've got to receive what I can give you.

You've got to receive sight and vision from me. You've got to be clothed with the righteousness that I provide. You need to be made rich with my wealth, not with the things that you think make you rich.

You need what Jesus and Jesus only can give. Here I am, I stand at the door and knock. So, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me, receive me.

When you're lukewarm, that's really the main problem, is you're out of touch with Jesus. You've lost track of the fact that all that you have that's worth having comes from him, and that fellowship with him is what it's all about. That's why a church exists.

If the church is not fellowshipping with Christ, if Christ is not at home in that church, and people eating and drinking with him and enjoying him, then they need to know that he's at the door, and they need to receive him. So, these are the commands of Jesus, adapted to the different circumstances of different churches, but again, considered as a whole, showing us the importance of repentance, of renewed love, of courage and faithfulness all the way to the death, of receiving the fullness of Jesus and all that he gives. That's the only cure when we've lost our love, when we've become lukewarm, is more Jesus.

More Jesus. The warnings, that's the part we don't like to hear, and we've already gotten some hints of that. I will remove your lampstand.

You might be orthodox, you might be upright, you might be all those things. I'm going to yank that lampstand and toss it, because I don't see the light of love shining there. Unless you repent.

There's always that unless. Every time Jesus gives a warning, there's always the unless. No warning for Smyrna, they're in good shape.

That church in Thyatira, or in Pergamum, he says, I'm the one with the sword, and I'm going to come after you with the sword, if things don't change there. Again, I hear people, you know, I'm in various, I'm in pastor's groups that discuss this and that, and the way they talk about Jesus, I wonder whether they're talking about him or their pet kitty. Without claws.

He's been declawed, he's not just a pet kitty, he's been declawed too yet. He would never come at anybody with a sword. He wouldn't come after any enemies with a sword, he won't come after any of his churches with a sword, but he will.

And that's his warning. When he speaks to that church in Thyatira, he speaks of Jezebel, a woman teacher who is teaching wickedness. I think of a teacher that I heard a while ago who said, you know, she supports ethically sourced porn, and it's okay for Christians to be involved in porn as long as it's ethically sourced.

And I thought, oh, Jezebel, welcome back. You know, what does Jesus say he's going to do with Jezebel? And that same church, he says, you've got people who are, they're teaching deep things. You know, you just don't think deeply enough.

You've got to be deeper. You've got to think deeper. You'll see the deeper unity of the different religions.

You'll see the deeper realities that go beyond all that, those moral standards that you thought were important. Let's get deeper. And Jesus says, they're really into the deep things of Satan.

What a terrible phrase, the deep things of Satan and Jezebel. That's what Jesus says when he looks at that church in Thyatira. Hey, Jezebel over there, you're really good at the deep things of Satan.

Boy, that sweet Jesus, meek and mild. But what does he say he's going to do? He's going to send disease upon them if they don't change. He's going to kill children, and he's going to pay them back what they deserve.

Again, that's Jesus Christ speaking, not the Apostle Paul speaking. You've heard that old game before now, haven't you? This is the way Jesus is. But, of course, Paul was different, and the Apostles, and the Bible, and all of that.

That's all different. But the real Jesus, okay, they don't know diddly about Jesus except from the Bible. And this is the Jesus who revealed himself in all that splendor to John and says these terrible warnings.

He says to that sleepy church, he says, I'm going to come like a thief in the night. You don't know when. And you've got to realize that a couple of times in Revelation, Jesus, when he says, I'm coming, does not mean that final coming at the end of history.

He is coming at the end of history. He can come sooner than that, okay? He can come to your church sooner than that and wipe it out. Some of these churches that are addressed in these letters are gone.

They're just gone. He can come in judgment on an individual and cast them on a bed of sickness. He can take their life.

He can remove a church. He's the one who holds our lives and holds all the churches in his hand. And so we need to be ready to hear the real Jesus when he warns us that he could come like a thief.

And he can pay us back or just spit us out, as he puts it, when he speaks to the lukewarm church. Those are his ferocious warnings. And keep in mind in all of these what he says in that final warning.

After he says, I'm going to spit you out of my mouth unless something changes, he says, Those whom I love, I rebuke. Those whom I love, I rebuke. Those whom I love, I'm giving these warnings because I want these warnings to get you off of that track and out of the line of fire of my judgment.

I am warning you and I'm rebuking you because I love you and you still have great opportunity to know the Lord, to walk with him, to be straightened out by him and live in intimate fellowship with him. And then there are the promises that if you heed his warnings and if you obey the commands that he gives, what are the promises? To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

He tells that to the church of Smyrna that's facing persecution and death. And he says, you're not going to be hurt at all by the second death. And in Revelation, the second death is hell.

You're not going to go to hell. Hell has no danger for you at all. He says to him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna.

We don't live by bread alone. We live on the hidden food that God gives to those who love him. I'll give some of the hidden manna and I'll give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

What's that white stone that's engraved with a special name? Well, in that time, a stone could be used for a couple of different things. One was in a jury trial, a white stone meant acquittal. A dark stone meant you were convicted and guilty.

And so if your name had a white stone engraved, it could be God's declaration of innocence and of being made right with him. This kind of a stone might also, in another way, be used as a token of entrance, what we today would call a ticket. Only a stone is a little more cool than a ticket.

And so he's giving you this declaration of acquittal or this ticket into glory. To him who overcomes, I will give authority over the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter.

He will dash them to pieces like pottery, just as I received authority from my father. I will also give him the morning star. Jesus Christ is the morning star.

He gives himself. That is the greatest of all promises. And he gives authority.

You may be facing the challenges of politicians and of nations, and Jesus says, I'm going to give authority over the nations to those who are faithful. He who overcomes will be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my father and his angels.

What a promise to be clothed beautifully in white, to have your name in the book of life, and nothing, nothing can erase that name. Your name is written there, and it can't be erased. That clothing is given you, and it can't be spoiled.

Those are his promises. Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it.

I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name. He seems to like engraving names. He engraves your special name on a white stone, but he also engraves his name on you.

You have the name of the new Jerusalem engraved on you as a citizen. You have the name of God, the name of Jesus Christ himself, engraved on you as a pillar in his glorious temple. What a beautiful picture of what it means to not only be in the new Jerusalem, but to be a part of God's glorious temple.

The Bible says there's not going to be a temple in the new Jerusalem, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, and we are pillars in that temple with the name of the Lamb and the name of the Father engraved on us. And his promise to the lukewarmers. He says, Those I love I rebuke and discipline, so be earnest and repent.

Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I'll come in and eat with him and he with me.

He promises to come, to fellowship with us, to be with us forever. And he says to him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. Those are the tremendous promises of reigning, of sharing the throne of Christ.

And Jesus wants us to know both what we would be missing out on, if we abandon him, and the terrible consequences of that, but also these tremendous promises. You'll notice, if you're familiar with the book of Revelation, that an awful lot of this is picked up throughout the book, and especially in the last two chapters, where you're eating from the tree of life in the paradise of God, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and the great river of life is flowing there. They're crowned, and they're saved from that second death, while the devil is cast into the lake of fire.

They're ruling the nations. The nations are bringing their splendor into the new Jerusalem. That's how the book of Revelation ends, with these tremendous promises of God.

So, in each of those letters, as you read them, as you meditate on them, listen to what it says about Jesus, and what he says about himself. Listen to what he's looking for in the church, and look for those same things, and pray for those same things to be true in our church, and in the churches in our community, and of our nation, and of our world. Look at the things he rebukes.

Doctrinal matters, moral matters, failure to love, getting lukewarm and without any zeal. Those are some of the things that we can look at and say, Is Jesus rebuking me in this area? The commands of how he wants us to proceed from here. The warnings of what will happen if we don't.

And the promises of belonging to him forever. And then finally, just, there's one thing that he keeps saying over, and over, and over again. Each of these letters has variety in the kinds of things he says, except for one thing, it's always the same.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Seven times he repeats it. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

May the Holy Spirit give each of us as individuals an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to us as a person, but also may we as a church have ears, so that we'll know how Jesus is addressing us. The areas that he's encouraging and building and telling us to keep on keeping on, and also those areas where he wants us to change. Where he wants us to be renewed by that wonderful word and presence that only Jesus himself can bring.

He walks among the churches. He holds the angels in his hand. And he speaks to us.

And when his voice speaks, the voice of his Spirit speaks in our hearts. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. We thank you Lord Jesus for speaking even from heaven.

We thank you for your wonderful ministry during your time on earth. And we thank you for speaking again from heaven, revealing some of your splendor to your beloved friend John. And for also just revealing to those seven churches and to your churches of all time throughout the ages, how you see us.

And so we do pray for the mighty working of your Holy Spirit, so that we may know you Jesus as you are, and not just as we imagine you to be. So that we may know our church as we are, and not just as we imagine ourselves to be. May your truth shine into our lives, correct us where we need it, encourage us where we're doing well, but just need your word to keep us moving forward.

And Lord we do pray for your mighty ministry among us. Help us Lord to hear this challenge together, and then Lord to encourage each other, to spur one another on toward love and good deeds, to hold each other accountable for sound doctrine and godly conduct, to fire each other's love for you and for each other, to have a zeal for you, a seriousness and a gladness that shines, that we truly can be a lampstand, shining, fueled with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and shining with the light of Jesus. We pray in your name.

Amen.