Quote:
If you ever moved to a new community and had to select a new church home, you know how difficult it is to examine and evaluate a church and its ministry. Imposing buildings may house dying or dead congregations, while modest structures might belong to virile assemblies on the march for the Lord. The church we think is rich may turn out to be poor in God’s sight.
Warren Wiersbe
The Bible Exposition Commentary
p. 571 Revelation 2
Illustration:
My wife and I, some 12 years ago, was looking for a new church home in the community that we lived. After many Sunday morning church visits across the small city and the surrounding county area, we had become convinced that none of them held an interest for us. The people, if they even noticed, could care less that we were there, no warm invitation to Sunday school or concern by the Pastor that we had even stopped in for a visit.
After several months we had been told about a small country church in the southern part of the county, some 30 miles from our home, was working hard for the Lord and their pastor was motivated to see the community come to a saving knowledge of the Lord. Lynn, my wife, immediately knew this was the place that God was calling us to.
After being in this church and a major part of this family, God called me into youth ministry and as they say, “The rest is history.”
What made us pull away from the many churches we visited?
Dry dead orthodoxy, complacent idol people, and a loss of love for the lost and for their master in whom they had been called.
What drew us to the small country church so far from our home??
Preaching of the Word of God with compassion, mixed with a genuine desire for our family to be part of their family and brotherly love.
See, friend My wife and I owe a great deal to a small country church and her Pastor; there is no way we would be where we are today without them, their prayers, their direction, but most of all their love.
After being in Pastoral ministry for seven years, I have learned a great deal about the need for revival and also how it impacts a community.
I. Ephesus, The careless church
Revelation 2:4
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Ephesus has had many wonderful pastor’s in its early years, which taught the word, lived the word; yet something had taken place in the hearts of the people. They lost something very important to their spiritual well being, their love for Christ. They had every type of service to reach every type of people, but they lacked purpose. The love of Christ gives purpose and meaning to every activity, every sermon preached, every home visit; without it we simply are just doing.
Many churches of today have the finest of buildings but no since of direction or purpose.
Three marks of a careless church
1. Doctrinal stability
2. Laborious (full of activity)
3. With no devotion (love)
It’s of the highest recommendation that every church be doctrinally sound and full of Good works; but if she has no since of purpose, no devotion, no love for her Lord then she is sadly just another dry dead church.
What is missing from this church is her honeymoon love, yea, that type of love that young couples have on their wedding day. This is the type of love that Christ desires from his church.
Jeremiah 2:1-2
Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
In the illustration given earlier about my wife and I, I mentioned we had visited several churches: Some of these churches could be characterized by their loss of their love for the Lord Jesus Christ. This prototype church can be distinguished by one visible sign.
1. No Fruit
How or why would I make such a harsh statement? Because of its truth; when a church has lost her purpose and motivation, she has also lost her love for the lost, and it will show in our numbers.
After careful study of the 2005 Arkansas Baptist Convention Annual report’s given by the local churches across the state, I found a startling truth; there was 254 churches out of all those reporting that had not baptized one soul, not one! Why? Most likely they have lost their love for the Lord and the lost.
Sermon Central readers: We must love the Lord with every ounce of our being, then, love the lost of this world with a fervent love, a love that will bring us out of the church building and into the streets.
If we wait for the lost to come to the church, we may never baptize any one.
II. Pergamous, The compromising Church
Revelation 2:14
14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Revelation 2:15
15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
I’m rather reluctant to comment on this subject, in writing or in the pulpit, but the Holy Spirit drives me onward. The doctrine of Balaam may be summarized as Dr. Wiersbe states, “A prostituting of ones spiritual gifts for finical gain.”
Three marks of a compromising church
1. Tell them what they want to hear for money, or
2. If you can’t beat’em, join’em attitude
Many of the Lord’s churches fall prey to Satan’s evil snares.
If each of us as God called preachers of the Gospel would step back and look at the overall health of the church today, we can see this biblical prototype in action.
3. Division within the church
The doctrine of the Nicolaitans can be stated as a division of the church into two separate parts, the clergy and the laity.
The Word of God teaches that there is no division of the church in the dispensation in which we live for we are all part of the priesthood of believers.
Sadly, there are still many Catholic churches that hold this view as well as some of the church bodies that descended from them during the reformation period.
The question again is asked, what necessitates “Revival”?
III. Thyatira, The corrupted church
Revelation 2:20
20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
The problem is that of mixed worship, No, not the issue of traditional verses contemporary, but mixed worship of the world and Jehovah.
Jezebel had taught the children of Israel to mix Baal worship with their worship of Jehovah. (1 Kings 16-19).
This prototype of church is marked by one thing
1. Knowingly allowing false teachings to take place.
Just like the Jews, we as more mature Christians know how we must worship and to whom or worship is to be directed and what the consequences will be if we falter.
The question is asked again, what necessitates “Revival”?
IV. Sardis, The feeble church
Quote:
“Spiritual ministries go through four stages: a man, a movement, a machine, and then a monument.”
Dr. Vance Havner
Revelation 3:1
And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
Living in rural Arkansas most of my life, I have seen many churches that fit into this mold. They’re marked by: their diminishing gray haired congregation, who die off one by one each year with out any new members being brought into the congregation, a NO desire to evangelize attitude and yet brag about the things they done decades earlier.
The Mark of a dead church
1. No Holy Spirit
2. Diminishing congregation
3. No salvations
When the branch of a tree dies it cannot produce fruit, therefore it must be removed before it causes disease to the whole tree. This is exactly what Jesus was stating in verse 3, judgment.
The question is asked again, what necessitates “Revival”?
Just look a round at the churches that are dead or dying in your communities. Let’s be honest brothers and sisters, the church is in a state of emergency, and the only hope we have is in a Holy Ghost filled Revival.
If many of our local congregations had a physical ailment that caused death, we would load them up in the church bus and admit them into the local ER.
Pray for Revival to come into the church of God.
V. Laodicea, The Foolish Church
Revelation 3:15-17
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
No offence to those of you that have large churches.
But many of our larger churches with in the SBC are nothing more than a machine, having much activity, large bankrolls, and multiple ministries and yet making no disciples for Christ.
The prototype can be distinguished by these four marks
1. Loss of spiritual vigor
The church had become complacent and doesn’t even see their state.
2. Loss of values
The church at Smyrna thought that they were poor when in fact they had the greatest riches imaginable, while the church Laodicea thought themselves to be rich when if fact they had become poor.
When a church focuses on the issue of wealth and neglects the value of one soul they are headed for spiritual ruin.
3. Loss of vision
The loss of vision is most likely due to poor teaching that feeds the soul and biblical preaching that makes one look inward at him/herself; literally the church was dying from malnutrition.
2 Peter 1:5-9
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
VI. Revival, the only solution
The question arises, how do we want revival to come to us, through persecution, or through the love and adoration of the king of kings.
1. Smyrna, the persecuted church
Persecution always brings revival, it separates those who truly love the Lord from those who only say they love the Lord in word.
There is a biblical truth that must be stated, God’s church will not die neither can the gates of hell shall prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18). God will keep the church alive, even if it means sending her through persecution.
2. Philadelphia, The church of fire
Revelation 3:8
8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.
The very name of the church gives rise to revival, the city of brotherly love. WOW, it would be awesome for the Lord of glory to pronounce upon us that He has put an open door before us and no one can shut it.
A. A church marked by continual revival
B. A church marked by evangelism explosion
C. A church marked by their commissioning of preacher, missionaries, and vocational evangelist.
A church that is not under attack is a church that Satan is not afraid of and causes him no problems.
We need to become a revival church that is marked by our love for the lord, sinners, and each other as well as our hatred for sin, the devil and compromise.
Again, I ask the question, what necessitates “Revival”?
Our lack of it makes it the greatest necessity. Pray for Revival to come.
To the readers at Sermon central: I believe with all my heart that every church fits into the mold of a least one of the churches depicted in Revelation 2 and 3. My prayer is that your church is a mirrored image of Philadelphia.
