It's Time To Clean The House Series

The Church on Trial Pt. 3

It’s Time to Clean the House

Revelation 2: 12-17

12) To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. 13) I know where you live – where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city – where Satan lives. 14) Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: you have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. 15) Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16) Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. 17) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

I would like to lift up the thought on this morning, “The church on Trial”. But what I would like to give as a sub thought is it’s time to clean the House. Look at your neighbor and say neighbor, it’s time to clean the house. Now I’m not talking about your physical house, but if that’s dirty, that’s ok. You probably need to clean that anyway. But God is talking about there are some spiritual house cleaning that needs to go on.

And my brothers and sisters, it is imperative, if you will, to understand that the signs of the time are being prophetically lived out right before our eyes. The bible says over in I Timothy 4: 1-2 out of the message bible, says: That the Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on some are going to give up the faith. In other words what he’s saying is that in this day and age, he says there is going to be a great falling away from the church.

He says and not only are they going to be falling away from the church, but he says and they are going to chase after demonic allusions put forth by professional liars. The world has said we don’t need the church. The world has said that the church is to anti-the-world. Well I want to help you understand that’s the reason why Christ came. He came to seek and save those that were lost. Christ came because he got tired of it being business as usual. He got tired of the church that represents him say, that we represent him yet our lifestyle ends up being another way.

God says for us to be holy, that’s not a compromise. God says that’s the way it is. And God says be holy for I am holy. So God says if you’re going to be holy, you got to make sure that you reconcile yourself to him, so that you can understand that righteousness is. And the problem is in the church that many of us profess to be connected to the church but we’re not connect to God.

Ok, I’m going to stay right there for just a minute because I think it’s necessary. God is saying these liars have lied so long and so well, that they don’t have the capacity for the truth. God is saying that you have lied so long not only to yourself, but to others. You don’t even know right from wrong and wrong from right.

And so he’s telling us in essence on today, he’s telling us it’s time to clean the house. He’s saying it’s time to quit playing the dozens and clean the house. He’s saying it’s time to quit being self-absorbed and be about the Kings’ business. He’s saying that the church, if you will. And remember two weeks ago, we’ve been dealing with the seven churches, and let’s be honest and transparent, when he’s talking about these churches, understand, he’s not talking about the building. He’s talking about us.

I need for us to be crystal clear there. He’s not talking about the building, because the building is not the one that’s guilty of sin, it’s you and I. So he’s talking about us, and so a couple of weeks ago we started dealing with the church at Ephesus. And one of the problems with the church at Ephesus, as he says is, listen, I’m not that at one point in time did what I called you to do. But somewhere along the road, prayer meeting had no more significance. Somewhere along the road, being here on time for Bible Study has lost its zeal. Somewhere along the road, giving what I have blessed you with has taken a back seat to your bills and other things. He says somewhere along the road you have left your first love.