“The Beginning Vision, The Lord’s counsel”
Pastor Allan Kircher Shell Point Baptist Church
Revelation 3:14-22
IN our beginning vision we look first at the Israelites.
They have taken an 11 day journey from Egypt to the Promised Land and it turned it into a 40 year experience in the desert.
Normally it takes only 11 days to travel from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh-barnea.
Kadesh-barnea was the threshold of promise. It was the desert entry point to the Promised Land.
It was the place from where they sent the 12 spies to spy out the land.
They had been held back and detained by God Himself.
But one day, God said to them, you have stayed too long in this place.
It is time SPBC to move out and move forward.
Then we look at the beginning of Solomon, when he finished the temple and was ready to move on, the Lord God said,
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.
When we do this the Lord God says, Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”
Oh, how I reverently seek the spirit of repentance for us each day.
But the church today, despite its largeness and its ability to exert pressure and its implied acceptance by world leaders, finds itself without real authority.
It is all very well for those of us who are fundamental in doctrine to blame the modernists for this situation,
And that there is blame to be attached to liberal theology should not be denied.
It is very well for us to castigate the liberal and to censure those who will not bow to the Word of God.
But sober reflection today in our day, reminds me there is no Abraham or Moses to stand in the portals of government.
There is no Elijah who elicits the threats of an angry, ungodly ruler in our mist today.
There is no John the Baptist ready to lose his head than his crown.
There is no Paul to live and pray consternation and fear into the heart of our leaders.
Are there any today to wear out for the Almighty God and stand for righteousness rather conformity?
I come this morning SPBC, for whose Christian character I am in some sense and to some degree responsible, with this appeal:
I beg of you---if you will not misunderstand the expression---make your communion such that it shall repel as well as attract.
That people in our community will find nothing here to draw them into an easy religion of words and formalism.
Beneath all vermin of worldliness and selfishness that may lurk,
They shall recognize the men and women of Shell Point who are bent upon holiness, longing for more and more conformity to the Divine Master.
Oh, children of God, may we never clog Christ’s chariot wheels in His kingdom.
May we never have so little spiritual life in us, as a congregation, that, if I may say so,
He dare not entrust us with the responsibility of guarding and keeping the young converts whom He loves and tends.
Depend upon it brothers and sisters, that, far more than my preaching, your lives will determine the expansion of Shell Point.
And if my preaching is pulling one way and your lives the other, and I have half an hour a week for talk and you have seven days for contradictory life, which of the two do you think is likely to win in the tug?
I beg of you, take these words that I am trying to speak.
Do not pass them to the man in the next pew and think how well they fit him, but accept them as needed by you.
Well, you say, the world is sin-hardened; it is far from God; it is beyond reach.
Let me ask the simple question: is it?
Can it be harder to reach, considering the few of today available to reach it, compared to the world in which the apostles lived?
Is anything too hard for the Lord? No…
The trouble is with us today…..
And I think, yes, I know, that God would have us turn from looking for others to blame and look into our own hearts to discover the real reason the situation in which we find ourselves.
You see, the Gospel still has its ancient power!
As a matter of fact, God is waiting for Shell Point to do something.
He’s waiting for us…God is waiting for us to make a move toward Him and toward His will.
I speak this morning with a dispensational, pre-tribulational, and pre-millennial view.
I speak this morning to you as one familiar with the interpretation of Revelation 2 and 3 according to the above view.
Why should we not turn to what the Sovereign Lord Counsels the Laodicean Church?
I believe we are living in the days of this church.
But wait a moment!
Too long we have cast our eyes outside the church and the reality of God and seduced ourselves to the world.
It’s about time we begin to look at the inside….
Can we shake ourselves loose from our complacency?
Our unwillingness to face reality?
Just for this morning, perhaps just for a moment, long enough to take an objective look at own condition.
God has been speaking scathingly to my own soul from this Laodicean epistle,
and I must admit that the look God has given me into my own profession has not been a pleasant one.
I wonder if you will dare to put your own life alongside the description the Lord Jesus Christ makes of this church.
The church of today mind you.
And this morning discover whether or not its certain faults are not found in you.
Hey listen, it may make some of us realize that we’ve been inoculated with just enough Christianity to immunize ourselves from the real thing.
But if we’ll dare to look and dare to listen—and God helps us to realize our desperate condition—
then thank God we can do something about it with His help.
God always goes to the heart of the matter.
Here is no pep talk; here is no challenge, in the much-abused use of that word this morning.
The Lord Jesus strikes at the root of the trouble.
Why are these Christians useless in this epistle?
What has happened that the Lord says that he wants to vomit them out of his mouth?
They think they are rich because of their physical possessions that they have.
However, they are not rich toward God. They are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Will you notice that three characteristics, three conditions, and the Lord lays hold of them in verse 18, re
“Poor, Blind, naked!”
I want to talk to you about this business of buying gold, buying eye salve, and buying white garments.
This is what Lord Jesus gave me of Shell Point.
First of all I want to talk about heavenly currency—gold refined in the fire.
Investing in the eternal God and not of physical and material.
The Lord is not talking about the gold of this world but the gold of the world to come.
What is the currency that is used in the world to come?
What will make us rich in the world to come?
Let us listen to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Matthew 6:19-21 Luke 12:20-21
Now I’m sure there are other ways of expressing it,
There may be other emphasis that you are thinking of.
But frankly, I believe that this world’s equivalent to the gold of heaven is sacrifice on the part of the child of God.
It seems to me that these verses, which I have read, from the Lord Jesus permit no alternative.
If we are persecuted, if we suffer, we’ll be rewarded.
If we leave houses and loved ones and friends for Christ, we’ll be rewarded.
Now there is a heavenly currency that our Lord speaks of here in Revelation 3 as refined in the fire—sacrifice.
The basics of sacrifice are willingness to suffer, to die to self and to the world,
and it all results in an utter transformation of a sense of values.
When we come to a place of discipleship and in consecration yield ourselves to the Lord for His will,
Things that once mattered no longer matter
And things that were once important are no longer important.
All of life is different. “Buy of me gold refined by fire.” Sacrifice!
Is the spirit of sacrifice among us?
As I’ve gone about, on occasion I’ve seen this principle demonstrated, and my heart has been humbled
And my soul has been refreshed as I have noticed the utter dedication of some children of God.
On the other side of the coin, I am troubled and torn to see a lack of it.
Every once in a while I stop and say, “what am I living for?”
How much is it costing me to be a disciple of the Lord?
For there is always a subtle temptation there to beguile yourself and to seek the way of ease and comfort.
Do you yearn to sacrifice for the cause of Christ?
Is it in your time? Your commitment? Your money?
Are you investing in your eternal security?
Whatever this word to the Laodiceans may mean to those who are not Christians, there is this word for us, and may God help us to face it this morning.
The Lord Jesus looks at you and at me and says, “You’re poor! You’re poor!”
Oh, He doesn’t say we’re poor as far as this world’s goods are concerned, for most of us have more than we need.
But so far as the exchequer of heaven is concerned and the coinage of the Celestial City, we’re abysmally poor, for there’s no sacrifice in our faith.
If we can take it easy, if we can retain the respectability and be well thought of by our comrades, that’s all that concerns us.
But real sacrifice astounds us and frightens us,
and we’re liable to say that the one who makes sacrifices is utterly beside himself and foolish.
So little are we committed to what we say we believe!
I venture to say that there is not one fundamental, orthodox Christian hearing my voice this morning who does not acknowledge at once that we lose what we keep or spend on ourselves.
With our lips we pay tribute to the aphorism that we must give to gain and what we grasp we lose.
But are we living it?
Enough of this business of mouthing our platitudes!
How much does it cost you?
How much does it cost me?
Go into the realm of time for a moment. Do we pat ourselves on our backs and say, “We give time to the Lord.”
Consider the time we give to ourselves and then consider the time we give to the Lord.
The most you’ll be in church for the week is 4 hours.
But sometimes I may hear people whose indolence and selfishness keep them home and say,
“We are as well to worship the Lord in the comfort of our living room on the Sabbath as we are in God’s house.”
That cannot be true, since God has enjoined us not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together.” (Heb. 10:25).
And it is very noticeable that when a man ceases to come to the house of God, you invariably find, as a result, that family worship has no longer a place in that home.
In the sanctuary God has special blessings that we must lose when we forsake the assembly of ourselves together.
“buy of me gold refined in the fire”
And what of this matter of money?
There are those who are giving and giving sacrificially.
But the number giving that way are few alongside the number who claim to be fundamental Christians.
The barna group estimates that as few as 20% of the members of a church tithe 10% of their income.
That would hypothetically mean for us that approximately 17 families in this congregation are bearing the burden of 128 families.
God will release the floodgates of heaven for those sacrificial givers.
God’s word also tells us that He will reward them in the coming day---the rest of us will stand there with our hands and our hearts empty.
And what about our strength?
Now God has to talk to me about this.
I’m far from perfect, but I thank God I live close enough to Him to hear Him once in a while, and I get ashamed of myself.
The subtle temptation is always to take it easy.
Listen, I’ve been on the other side of the fence, I’m not going back there.
I’m staying in God’s word. Look what he has done for me.
God reveals mystery to me every day from His word.
“I counsel you to buy of me from me gold refined by fire”
Something that is going to last beyond the things of time and space, beyond our few short years left here on this earth.
Are we investing in our eternal security?
For too long I’ve been applying this Laodicean epistle to the lukewarm church members whom I see on all sides,
and in pride I have been saying I’m all right and it doesn’t touch me, when as a matter of fact it touches me first of all.
Mark it brothers and sisters, until it touches you, it won’t touch anybody to whom you minister.
I haven’t learned very much, but one thing I have learned, that if I minister to people,
God ministers to them about the same thing He has to talk to me about.
And until He has talked to me about it, it is just clanging cymbals and empty words.
“I counsel you to buy of me gold.”
Oh, my friends, is the Spirit of God beginning to speak to your heart?
Don’t shut Him out. Let Him begin to search, let Him begin to lay hold on these cold hearts of ours and stir us from lethargy.
The Lord Jesus looks at Shell Point and says, “You are poor.”
I look in my heart and say, “It’s so, it is so.”
“Buy of me gold.”
The priceless riches of true salvation.
Buy gold for heaven today.
Now let’s look at this second characteristic.
“buy of me eye salve”
The Laodiceans had a huge production of eye salve to help people see.
But Christ offered them eye salve to anoint their eyes so that they might see.
They prided themselves on their allegedly superior spiritual knowledge.
Just like the Laodiceans, we need to buy the eye salve from Christ to open our eyes from the darkness of the world to light in the kingdom of God.
From the dominion of Satan to God.
eye salve speaks of vision concerning things eternal
It is not necessary to take a great deal of time to develop the thought, but, as a matter of fact, we are blind.
I will admit at once that the Christian who is born of the Holy Spirit is not totally blind.
Once I was blind, but now I see.
Thank God, there is some vision.
But we are limiting God and coming short of God’s purpose because we have defective vision.
Let me read 2 Corinthians 4:18….
Are you looking at eternal things this morning?
If you are, it will affect the way you live.
If Shell Point’s vision is eternal, it will affect our lives.
You see, we may sing about them, we may claim them, we may testify to them,
But unless we have our eyes set on eternity, we are singing and testifying and speaking a lie.
God help us to start to mean business with Him.
Too long we’ve had the right phrase on our lips, but our hearts have been empty and cold.
Our disobedience speaks more effectively of our disregard for the Lord than all our pious singing of hymns of praise, which only outwardly set forth our devotion.
Yes, God help us to acknowledge His deity.
But the acknowledgment of His deity, if it is a true acknowledgment, will make a difference in our faithfulness to Him right now.
Now don’t talk to me and don’t fight about this business of the Lord being Lord when you’re denying it in the way you live.
It’s about time we get the two things together.
If our doctrine is right and held in our hearts, it will make our lives right.
“Buy of me eye salve.”
Where are you going with this eye salve?
Peter tells you. You’ve forgotten something SPBC
Let me read 2 Peter 1:9….
That’s the trouble, only seeing what is near.
If there is one malady above another that plagues Christians, it is this business of nearsightedness.
We’re living for the things of time and sense.
Our eyes have not become accustomed to looking beyond the horizon into the Celestial City;
The world is too much with us.
Unfortunately, in these days when the Devil is so active, the world is more and more with us who claim to be separated Christians.
Seeing only what is near—what about that, my friends?
It is so easy to be engrossed in our own concerns, in our own lives, in our own families that our hearts don’t beat in sympathy and compassion and love for others.
It takes a sledgehammer blow from God even to dislodge us a portion of an inch from our complacency, our self-satisfaction, our comfort and ease.
Listen, if we’re nearsighted and we have no heart of compassion for a world that is lost, no concern for others, we need to get back to the Cross.
We need to get back to that place where the wonder of it all dawned on our souls
And it overwhelmed us and consumed us in our praises to His name.
And nothing that He asked was too much, no command that He uttered was too great.
We need some eye salve this morning.
I know we do; I need it too.
Shell Pointers, let us rid ourselves of the nearsightedness so we see the march in the purposes of God for the whole church.
Are you nearsighted this morning? Buy eye salve of Him.
And now for our last character in this epistle.
“Buy of Me White Garments”
You see, the Laodiceans were famed for their black wool which symbolizes filthy, sinful garments with which the unregenerate are clothed.
We must put off our filthy rags and put on the white raiment which Christ had purchased and provides for us.
His own imputed righteousness for justification and the garments of holiness and sanctification.
Now, this is not the garment of salvation, let us get that straight.
The Lord Jesus counsels us to buy these garments.
Look at Hebrews 1:9, God searched my heart very deeply in this verse.
“You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions. By anointing you with the oil of joy.”
Is God speaking to you as He has spoken to me through this text?
the white garments speak to us of character, namely, of what we are.
It has been a sad privilege in some respects to have the place of leadership God has given me.
But I’ve learned some things.
If you love God’s right standards, you will hate wrong standards.
These two convictions are inseparable.
One cannot exist without the other.
You cannot truly say, “I love righteousness, but I also like sin.”
Oh, how the Spirit of God has been grieved and how revival has been kept back because of how Christians love their sins more than they love the Savior.
Is God talking to you about it?
Jesus hated sin just as surely as He loved righteousness.
You see it in His temptation. You see it in His cleansing the Temple.
You see it in His death on the cross.
And the more we become conformed to our Lord, the more we are going to find that we, too, love righteousness and hate sin.
By our attitudes toward righteousness and toward sin we buy those garments in our walk with the Lord.
And in that purchase we can tell how close we are to being conformed to Christ.
Hey, superficiality—we’re all right as long as we speak the language.
God help us!
“I counsel you to buy of me white garments to cover thy nakedness.”
And now for the rest of the story.
You will find it in the same epistle, Revelation 3:19: “So be earnest and repent.”
A word that we’ve forgotten, a word that we don’t know much about, we don’t know how to do it.
But if we let God speak deeply enough to our souls, so that we see the heinousness of our sins and the emptiness of our lives, we’ll be bowed down before Him and we’ll be repenting even though we don’t know the mechanics.
God help us to get there.
Brother and sisters in Christ, God is waiting for us.
I’m not speaking absolutely against gadgets and devices and ideas and plans.
They’re all right in their places, but they are no substitute for sacrifice, for character, and for vision.
Spirituality and discipline and discipleship and consecration and obedience are in need of this hour, this day, this month and in 2011.
We must live boldly and wrestle in prayer and give sacrificially and utterly honest witness of the Lord.
We need to get back to first things.
That is the vision God gave me for Shell Point.
We begin fresh anew beginning today with ourselves.
Next week, we begin with the first things, the first church.
We will study for months on end how we as a church can and will obtain righteous glory through the book of Acts.
Look inside first, then out. Strengthen the body before we move on in vision.
Repent! And isn’t it wonderful, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20).
He is knocking this morning, and if you will open He will come in and He will eat with you as well as you will eat with Him.
I’ve tried to talk to you about something that God has been talking to me about, the Lord’s counsel for us here at Shell point for 2011.
Let him who has ears hear what the Spirit says.
When we live these three characteristics, when we are poor, blind, and naked in the Love of God.
His eyes will be open and HIs ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”
Will you let Him talk to you?
