Settler's Best Series

Series: Are You Prepared? (Revelation) [#5]

SETTLER’S BEST

Revelation 2:18-29

Introduction:

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said, "We can’t keep Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their Savior. Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered Dish dinners, but steal their time, so they don’t have time to develop a real relationship with Jesus Christ."

"This is what I want you to do", said the devil. "Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day! "How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered:

1.Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow.

2.Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles.

3.Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!

4.Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that ’still, small voice.’

5.Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive...to keep the TV, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ.

6.Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.

7.Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what’s important, and they’ll become dissatisfied with their wives.

8.Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night. Give them headaches too! If they don’t give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere. That will fragment their families quickly!

9.Even in their recreation, let them be excessive...have them return from their recreation exhausted. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God’s creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead.

10.Keep them busy, busy, busy! And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, they will leave with troubled consciences. Crowd their lives with so many good causes that they have no time to seek power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause.

’It will work! It will work!!"

It was quite a plan! The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to have little time for their God or their families, and to have little or no time to tell others about the power of Jesus to change lives. I guess the question is, has the devil been successful at his scheme? You be the judge!

Compromise will destroy a church. We live in a world of compromise where people seek their own interests at any cost. People sell their souls for the possessions, power, and pleasures of this world. People compromise what they know is right in order to get what they want. This was what the members of the church at Thyatira were doing. The church at Thyatira is a picture of the compromising church, a church full of believers who were compromising with the world in order to fulfill their personal desires.

I. The Communicator

As in the other letters to the 7 Churches, Jesus identifies Himself to this Church through a description of Himself. Look at how Jesus describes Himself to this Church of compromise.

Revelation 2:18

1.Christ says that He is the Son of God. He is the One to whom a person owes his life. Christians do not own themselves but belong to Jesus Christ who has purchased them through His blood. We are not to compromise with the world.

2.Christ says that His eyes are like a blazing fire. Christ sees all. He sees us when we make compromises. There are times in Scripture that we see fire being used as purifier, (ie… the refiner’s fire).

3.Christ says that His feet are like burnished bronze (brass). Christ is able to step down hard upon all seductive teaching and compromise. He rules and He judges. His feet will crush those who compromise with the world.