Don’t Get To Heaven Empty-Handed

WOLFL-2024-06

Transcript

But it’s a blessing to be here. We’re going to be in Revelation chapter 2. You can see on the screen verses 18 through 29. Now is the time to start processing. The book of Revelation illustrates the rest of the Bible. The book of Revelation chapter 2 in these 12 verses we’re looking at illustrates 1 Corinthians 3. Now I’m going to do something to help you retain this theme. The theme of this chapter is don’t get to Heaven empty handed. It’s only talking to Christians, it’s Jesus Christ talking to Christians. And it’s Jesus illustrating in the Church of Thyatira what it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I’m going to read 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 10 to 15.

Now when God wanted people to really pay attention to His Word, as it was read in the Old Testament, what did God have them do? Anybody remember? What did Ezra make everybody do when he read the Bible to them? Yeah, so let’s all stand up and I’m going to read verses 10 to 15 and then I’m going to pray. Then we’re going to take off and go really fast because this is one of the crucial themes and I don’t want you to miss any part of it. Verse 10, Paul said, speaking the Word of God according to the grace of God which is given to me as a wise master builder. I laid the foundation and another builds on it. Here’s the lesson but let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is Christ Jesus. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble. Each one’s work will become clear, for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test everyone’s work of what sort it is.

Now pause for a minute. This is an unusual passage. It’s talking about life like building like Legos or something, only you get gold, silver, and precious stone Legos, or you get plastic ones. And the whole project, now this is beautiful, my kids, I know you guys are beyond that, but my kids played with Legos endlessly. I spent a fortune in Legos. I swept up Legos. There were so many of them. Can you imagine putting your Lego creation through a gas furnace fire? That’s 2000 degrees. You know what Legos are made of, right? Plastic, which is basically petroleum, which is basically flammable. What would be left of your Lego creation? God says you’re building right now and on the table in front of you are Legos, they’re going to burn up, and metal and stones that will never burn up. See, don’t worry about the gold, silver, and wood, hay, and whatever stubble is, it’s flammable and not flammable. But God doesn’t force you to pick. You just get to pick whatever Lego you want, and you get to spend your life building something.

Look what’s going to happen to it in verse 13 and the fire will test each one’s Lego building, their work what you did with your life. What you made it of what sort it is and if anyone’s work which is built on it endures he receives a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet through fire.

Let’s pray. Father, I pray that the truth of Your Word illustrated in Thyatira will be something that none of these young people, no matter where they head after this year, that they ever forget, they’re sitting at a table and they’re building a little Lego creation. And You’re going to burn it up because you want it to last forever. So, I pray that they would start making little tiny choices today during this class hour that they’re going to build with what You want them to build with. What’s going to last forever in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.

You may be seated. As your seated. How many of you watched.., did you New Yorkers really get to watch? Did it work? The stream, you saw anything? Wow, I’m proud of you and I’m proud of the crew there that they connected us. That’s a blessing So you’ve seen this chart many times This is the visual of what Revelation is. The first week we spend only on the first two parts the Church on Earth We’re right in the middle of that, and today we’re covering three more hours. We’re going to cover many more churches. Then tomorrow we’re going to go to Heaven and see the Church in Heaven and around the throne and all that. Where we’re headed. And then next week we start with that red block and go all the way through.

But this is what’s on your test. I thought that I would take a moment to get you ready for the test. This is half of your final exam, which only has 20. Points. And the reason I’m going to go through this, and once I get going, I’ll go really fast.

The reason I’m going to go through it is this concept of biblical topics and where they are in the Bible is something that all of you should start collecting. You’re in Bible school you’re having to spend, what, five hours a day learning the Bible, and all the way through you’re learning where the key doctrines in the Bible are located. Now, I know you can Google it. But the reason you should memorize where the key doctrines are is, you’re going to be talking to someone someday when you don’t have time to punch into Google, where is that verse? And so, the key ones, you should know where they are by heart. I’m going to show you because these are the ones you need to know for the test. If you want to know the premier place in the Bible that describes the Beast and the Anti-christ, what chapter of Revelation would it be? Anybody know? 13. Think of Friday the 13th. Think of whatever.

But if you want to know, and that’s going to be a matching choice on your exam, you’re going to have down this side all the things you see there, the Anti-christ and the origin of Lucifer and all that. And then you’re going to have all these choices of places that they are. When you think of the beast and the Anti-christ, it’s chapter 13.

When you think of the seven churches, where are they? They’re in chapters 2 and 3. That’s where we’ve been all week long. The two witnesses, do you remember the two witnesses that come and minister for half the Tribulation? What chapter are they in? You know how it’s easy to remember. There are two witnesses, so think of two ones and it’s chapter 11, chapter 13 for the beast. How about the one class that I’ve taught for 20 years and seen every young person in the class sit up and it’s all of a sudden everyone starts listening. Because most of them didn’t know the Bible explains all the cosmic monsters and all these names they’ve, the boys have heard in all their gaming, all their… doing their video gaming. These names of these monsters are in the Bible. And all of a sudden, you should see it… everyone sits up and listens and that’s chapter 9. If you want to know about the monsters from the pit it’s in Revelation 9. How about the 144,000? There’s a curiosity about that everywhere you go.

Yesterday I was getting a haircut. One of the ways that I found to get people to listen to the Gospel is to get their attention. And I, they kept asking me, what do you do? What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? And I said finally, I teach the Bible. I teach Bible prophecy. They’ve all heard something, either the Anti-christ or the 144,000, or they’ve heard of the Armageddon. But where do we find the 144,000? Two places. They’re like brackets. They’re before, in chapter 7 introduced, before we get to the heavy duty plagues, and then in chapter 14 when they’re up in Heaven giving their report of their ministry. We find them again in Revelation 7 and 14.

How about the 24 elders sitting around the throne? That’s in chapters 4 and 5. We’ll start that tomorrow. The dragon and the woman. When we get to this chapter, it’s the most fascinating for what’s going on today. Do you know what’s going on in the world? Do you know what the whole world is holding their breath over? Do you know what the New York Stock Exchange is holding its breath over? Do you know what the EU, everybody in the world is holding their breath? They’re hoping something doesn’t happen. They’re hoping that Israel doesn’t attack Iran too badly because it will prompt Russia and China and North Korea to help Iran. And we’re going to have another horrible war going on. Did you know that is a whole chapter of Revelation? That’s chapter 12. Do you know what chapter 12 is about? God portrays the future as the dragon, who is Satan, against the woman, who is Israel. That’s a whole chapter of the Bible that says the key event that prompts the end of the world is going to be Satan wants to destroy Israel.

Satan’s chief desire is to get rid of Israel. Why? Because God has promised that Israel is going to rule with Him during the Millennium. And if Satan can kill all the Jews there won’t be any of them to reign in the Millennium. And Jesus won’t be able to rule over Israel and sit on a throne in Jerusalem. Satan has endlessly tried to destroy Israel. And we’ll talk about that on that day. It’s fascinating. I was telling Bonnie all the…, telling Bonnie…

There’s my wonderful wife. She’s now here in that corner. That is my wife of 41 years and my best friend in the whole world right there. And I’m thankful for you. And I talk about her a lot and she’s a blessing to me.

We’ll cover that next week. Then Armageddon, you’ve all heard of Armageddon. Where is that? That’s in Revelation 16 and you’ve all heard of Satan, but where did he come from? Who was he before? He was the most powerful, intelligent, beautiful creature God has ever made. Creature. Satan is the most beautiful and the most intelligent and the most powerful being God has ever created. Do you realize that? God picked him out of all the angels to be the anointed covering cherub. What is that? Where is that? That’s not in Revelation. That’s in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. That’s the only chapter that’s going to be on your test that’s not in Revelation. No one should miss that one. Those two chapters, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, cover the origin of Lucifer.

Okay, here we go. Don’t get to Heaven empty handed. Which church are we talking about? The arrow is pointing towards Thyatira. Thyatira was a trade city. It was a very famous city. It was excavated by William Ramsey. Sir William Ramsey of England, and he wrote a whole book about what he found in this city. It was highly civilized. It was right there in the middle of Roman province of Asia. It’s a real picture because God picked it.

We’ll start reading. This is what Revelation 2:18 says. And to the angel, as I’ve already told you, that’s the person that received the scroll. He didn’t have wings. It was the pastor, teacher, leader. We find him in chapter 1 being one of the stars that Jesus holds in His hands. We find in Ephesians 4, those stars are the gift God gives to every church. He gives them a teaching pastor, an eldered pastor teacher. But this teacher of the church in Thyatira writes, and remember every letter has the same pattern, Jesus introduces Himself. These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, like we saw in chapter 1. His feet are like brass, like we saw in chapter 1. Now He gives the commendation. I know your works, your love, your service, your faith, your patience. Look at this, as for your works the last, that means what you’re doing today, are more than the first. This church is opposite of Ephesus. Do you remember that? Ephesus, their works in the past were greater. Their love and their seeking of the Lord was greater back then than it is now. Not Thyatira. They love Him more today than they did yesterday. Here’s the lesson.

Today, you’re either making choices to advance, that means to keep going deeper and toward the love of Christ, or to… wow, that’s positive. How did Thyatira do that?

This church happens to be in the region that got more books of the Bible than any other part of the world. Look at everything they got. Revelation is coming to them. Peter wrote his two epistles. Peter opens his two epistles saying, to the elect scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. What’s that? That’s a description of this area. It’s the provinces. Paul’s letters to the Galatians are to right here, to the Ephesians are right there, to Ephesus, to Colossians down there by Laodicea, plus he wrote 1 and 2 Timothy to this area. Plus, John wrote, John was pastoring Ephesus, and he wrote his epistles to this area. James wrote his to the twelve tribes scattered throughout, and where were they scattered? Right here in the Roman province, there were synagogues everywhere. So, they got 12 different New Testament epistles.

Probably the most punchy one is the one to Galatians. And this verse mostly, I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, Galatians 2:20. Think about what that says. That epistle tells us, how did we get saved?

Now I want you to think, now this, I know it’s early, but didn’t you guys have last hour off? You got to just rest and catch up and talk to each other? If I had any idea you were doing that, I would have come early. Aren’t you glad I didn’t know, then I wouldn’t have to rush through this class. Why didn’t one of you text me and say, come on over? I’m teasing. Eric, I’m teasing. You understand that? Okay. Here we go.

By trusting, believing, and clinging to the truth, Christ took my sins in the past. By me believing that past event is how I got saved. You think? Now I want you to think about this, how do we get saved? We get saved by looking in faith at a past event and believing it’s true enough that we grab hold of it, and that faith grabbing hold of it transforms us. God transforms us. See, faith is the way we grasp, it’s like the way we plug into the power of God. It’s all His power and the connector is our faith. And even if you have faith, the size of a mustard seed. Y’all heard that term? What is a mustard seed? It’s literally the smallest physical object that your fingers can feel. You ever had a grain of sand and you can feel it? You’re about the size of a mustard seed, except a mustard seed is round. It’s like a poppy seed. It’s rounded. You have to almost move it to feel it with your nerve sensation of your touch. What Jesus said is, if you have faith, even the very smallest amount that you can just barely feel, it’s still a connection.

I learned that when my parents raised horses. They raised an Arabian quarter horse. They had an Arabian quarter horse that they were raising… They had this, if you know anything about Arabians, they’re very spirited, so they had this very strong electric fence. I was a little kind of guy and my dad said, Johnny, don’t touch that fence. It’ll knock you on the ground. You’ll be sorry. What does every kid, what do you want to do immediately? Touch the fence. The true way to get someone not to do something is tell them to do it, it’s not to tell them not to do it. That’s just how we’re wired. I thought I don’t want to touch it directly and disobey my dad. I got the bright idea of taking a piece of grass and so a green grass. I picked up the green grass and I came up and I laid it out. On that wire and it just vibrated a little bit. I thought, Ooh, it’s cool. There’s something alive in that wire. So, I look both ways, like Eve in the garden, and I took my hand and I grab that fence and wrap my finger. Did you know if you grab an electric fence, one or two or three milliseconds after you grab it, the first pulse of electricity comes through, and it almost paralyzes your hand. So, I’m standing there and I can’t take my hand off. It makes you not be able to move and it’s going, boom. The closest thing to it is, get the biggest football player and have him punch you in the stomach, and it goes, boom. I’m standing there going boom. Thankfully gravity took over and my weight pulled me back and it pulled my hand off. I learned even the tiniest connection to that wire, the power just came through. That’s what faith is. You want transformation in your life? All you have to do is believe past truth.

What past truth do we believe? Look at this. I got saved by believing the past truth, but was I there personally? No, it was by faith. I believed God’s Word about a past event and God changed me forever. That’s the message.

Now here, let me give you a message that’s like an electric fence. Oh, I don’t have a screen over here. I’m sorry. I’ll have to go this way. Therefore, here’s what Peter said to this group of people, lay aside all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and evil speaking. As a newborn baby, desire the Word of God so you can grow. Now, if you will, this morning, reach out in faith that’s stronger than my dad’s electric fence. If you reach out to the Word of God and say, I believe what You said, I want to lay aside in my life all sin.

Do you know how you lay aside all sin? You never get rid of it, but you can stop operating under its control. Do you know how you get it? You ask God to give you the strength to lay it aside. You actually ask Him. Do you know what you’ll discover? What I discovered grabbing the fence. He’ll start punching you. He’ll say you shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t think that you shouldn’t… again. It’s even better. Get a godly wife. You know what? She’ll say to me, you know what Bonnie says to me? You know what? She says to me a thousand times. Honey, are you believing the truth or are you believing a lie? You say, what do you mean by that? Satan tells us… you heard that in chapel yesterday, those of you that were not in New York heard Don Lough teach about victory over Satan. Remember what he said?

We believe the lie. Satan tempts us by telling us untruths, and we grab those instead of the truth of God. Which right there is, you can lay aside the sin, you can grow by loving the Word, if you taste the Lord as gracious. Then look at verse 11, beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

I was, I grew up in a typical high school, I was on a typical football team, and they always went drinking after the games on Friday and looking for the girls. That was just Friday night. That’s what everybody did at Haslett. They’d say, do you want to come? I’d say no. I didn’t say, you dirty, rotten, fornicating drunks. I just said, I don’t like to drink. I’m from a family of alcoholics. Both my grandfathers died of cirrhosis. My parents had marital problems and met in a bar. I’m from a family of alcoholics. I don’t, I’m not interested in drinking. I would like to be happily married, so I’m not interested in what else you guys do with all of your looking for the girl stuff. You know what that was? I wasn’t telling them they’re a bunch of rotten, going to Hell, fornicating drunkards. That is, that’s all true but that’s not helpful for witnessing. You know what I said? I abstain from that.

Did you know you can politely tell, even your Christian friends, that you abstain from any fleshly lust which will war against your soul. You know the things that make you feel far from God. You know the things that make you feel cold and detached from God, and you don’t even feel like a Christian. Every one of us who is truly born again have felt those feelings. That’s the conviction of God. He’s saying, don’t do that. All we have to do is believe Him and say, I want to lay aside all those things and I want to abstain from those things. Okay?

But look what happened to this church. Now we’re in the next verse. We only, we’re not getting very far, but look at what happened. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you, Thyatira. Verse 20. Because you allow that woman, this is a literal person, she had a bad name from the Old Testament, Jezebel, you allow that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. Just the way God put this, she was claiming to be a New Testament voice of God, teaching truth from God, a prophetess. She had an Old Testament bad name, Jezebel, and look at what she was doing. She teaches and seduces My servants to commit sexual immorality. Wow, that’s a Jezebel. And, she was in the church.

Now look, the note I put. Jesus knows who’s influencing your life and my life. Whether they’re challenging us to sanctification. What does that mean? Abstain from fleshly lust. Don’t have anything to do with those things they war against your soul. That’s what sanctification is. Sanctification is a big word. It means usefulness to God. Do you know that spoon you want to use eat your cereal with or your soup with? If you see a fly sitting on it, it’s not very appealing. Worse than that, if there’s something awful on it, like something rotting or it falls on the floor or the whatever, you don’t want to use it. See, that’s what sanctification is. God wants us to be useful to Him. So, we protect, we lay aside the things that cause us to grieve Him so He can’t use us. Our friends either challenge us to sanctification or to feed our flesh, which in this context is seduced to commit sexual immorality, in the verse.

But what happens when we give in to those lusts and sins that so easily beset us? It says in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, we quench the Holy Spirit. Remember our two fire extinguishers, the OSHA or safety or fire marshal says they’ve got to have those? They’re right there on the wall. Do you want those do? They suppress the fire. That white foam goes over it. That’s exactly what the Greek word means in that verse 1 Thessalonians 5:19, only it’s not the fire of the carpet, it’s the fire of the Holy Spirit. When we choose to sin, we extinguish, we sbennymi this the Greek word. We quench the Holy Spirit. Okay, now think about it.

I told you Ramsey, William Ramsey excavated Thyatira, look at this. When he excavated, he said sin was everywhere present and powerfully alluring. The reason he said that is, that the Roman historians said that the Roman empire was like living in a cesspool. Remember what a cesspool is? It’s a septic tank. It’s a port a potty. You ever go to the fair and they have a port a potty and the sun is shining on it? You can smell it for 300 feet. You know right where the bathrooms are because when the sun heats those things up, it’s just the awful stuff within smells. That’s what Thyatira was like. It was a cesspool of sin. Sin was and is everywhere present and powerfully alluring It was like living in a cesspool of sin back then. What was and still is the solution for intense temptation?

Do you know what an intense temptation is? It’s different for every one of us in this room. For some of you, it’s an intense temptation for some, clothing that costs more than you can afford, or a shoe that costs more than you can afford, or a computer that is faster and better and whatever, or a car, or a woman, or a man, or a job. Do you understand what I mean? We have all different temptations. But what does the book of Revelation say is the solution for when we face intense persecution?

Look, it’s the theme of this book. Jesus is the only thing you need to overcome that intense persecution. Why? He said, I was in all points tempted just like you are, yet without sin. I know how to say no to the devil.

Right? Were you listening, or those of us that were in chapel, did you hear what Don said yesterday? Jesus goes and spends those 40 days, He’s at His weakest, and He faces off with the devil. What does He do? He holds up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and defeats him. Jesus is all I need to live for God in an ever darkening world. That’s what the second generation church needed.

Either you’re floating along with the world or resisting it. Verse 20 says, you allow that woman Jezebel to teach and seduce. They weren’t chained to the chair and had to listen to Jezebel. They were drawn by their wrong desires to listen to Jezebel. Do you understand? You’re either choosing to resist temptation or to float along with them.

Number five there, beware of sins against your own body. Did you know God mentions sexual immorality more in the New Testament as something to be avoided than any other sin? Did you catch that? Did you know Satan knows that all of us are wired sexually and if he can get in there and get to connected to that current that flows through us he can derail us. I’ve seen people do the worst… I saw one of the best Bible teaching men I’d ever met, you talk about a gifted teacher. This guy was a medical doctor, brilliant, everything, totally super fit, marathoner and everything. When he came to teach in church, his life experiences, his personality, like his whole body was a communication tool. He was amazing. He discipled, he had every high school kid wanted to be in his group, every college kid wanted to be in his group. The adults all wanted to grow up and be like him. And guess what? He had a storybook family, a storybook marriage. He had an amazing wife who was just as gifted as a Bible teacher as him. But he was making a little too much money, I think, and he got a little bored with what to do with his money. And of course, you know what happened. The bad end of the story. He left his wife for his high school girlfriend. He abandoned his wife and family and all of his ministry. I used to meet with him and he said, what can I do? He said, I don’t even like my high school sweetheart. It was just a fantasy. He says, now I’m divorced from my wife, my kids won’t talk to me. The church people won’t talk to me. And, I’m married to this unsaved high school girlfriend. That I’m probably going to get divorced from her too. I said, wow. I said beware of sins against your own body.

Sexual immorality is different. This is what Paul said, 1 Corinthians 6:18. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin a man does is outside the body. You steal and you harm people, and you lie to people and it’s all here. It’s outward. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. What is the deal with that?

It’s because the Holy Spirit lives within us and when we commit sexual immorality we grieve and quench the Holy Spirit that’s in this temple. Now a lot of sins grieve Him, but it seems like there’s something about sexual sins that really quench Him. Now look at what happens?

There are healthy Christians and there are sick Christians. Healthy Christians are like…, this is how Isaiah describes them, the work of righteousness. That’s a healthy Christian, they’re operating in Christ’s righteousness, will be peace. And the effect of righteousness, the long term benefit of salvation is a quietness and assurance. You’re not looking for your old high school flame on Instagram or Facebook or something or whatever. You’re not always looking for something. You have this quiet assurance.

But here’s what a sick Christian is like. The wicked, you say, wait a minute, that’s an unsaved person. Yeah. And a sick Christian acts like an unsaved person. That’s why they don’t feel saved. The Holy Spirit does not allow you to feel saved when you’re acting like you’re unsaved. You’re acting out wickedness of the devil, but the wicked are like the troubled sea. They cannot rest. Their waters cut, cast up mire and dirt.

So, what happens when you persist in this? That’s what we started when I made you stand up, so you’d remember it. Beware of losing everything you live for on Earth. Beware of your Lego creation, watching it melt and turn brown and then burst into flames and turn up being nothing at the other end of the fire.

Jesus said some people suffer loss. Don’t get to Heaven empty handed. If anyone’s work is burned, Paul said, he will suffer loss. Did you know this is a description of the judgment seat of Christ? The judgment seat of Christ is, I told you in day one of our class, life is like being at Walmart and everything we do is throwing it in our cart. The Bible says you don’t throw any sins in your cart because all of them are on Christ, and so it’s only our life apart from sin. It’s everything you have choices in. How you dress, how you act, what you listen to, everything that is not sinful in life, which is about 90%, 99% of life is non sinful. It’s just choices of what we wear, what we do, what we listen to, how we entertain, how we work out everything, all those choices. They’re either Lego pieces that are plastic, wood, hay, and stubble, which means they’re not eternal, or they’re gold, silver, and precious stones. The judgment seat of Christ is when you dump your shopping cart of every moment of life you lived on Earth. Jesus runs it through the scanner, only it’s not the scanner at the airport, it’s a fire.

This is what it says, if anyone’s work is burned, what’s on the conveyor belt, at the other end they suffer loss, but they’re saved, but yet, so as through fire. Did you see the pictures last year of all the people in Yellow Knife, Canada, that the raging fires of Canada came so fast on an entire city they only escaped with what they were wearing. They had to run from the city. The flames were coming at 60 miles an hour, like a freight train. Have you ever seen someone that’s been in a house fire? Bonnie and I had a home when we lived in Massachusetts and we allowed someone to stay at our home and they were smoking and they fell asleep with a cigarette and, a lot of stuff is flammable in bed and I don’t know what, their pillow and it, by the way, it burned our whole house. And after the firemen get done spraying everything on it, you get to go back. There was not anything in that house. They did keep a part of it from not burning. But there was nothing that was worthwhile. It was either baked, or it was browned, or it was smoked. Everything, by the way the smoking person got a little burned and went to the hospital and they survived, and it was great, except it ruined everything in the house.

You know what the Bible says? Do you want your life to be like it was saved so as through fire? No. Do you want to give to Jesus, want to give Him a present and everything that you spent your life doing you want something to survive and you want to give Him something and at the end you watch the conveyor belt and nothing made it from your life. That’s what this is talking about. They suffer loss. Still saved. Praise God. Get to spend forever with the Lord, but you’re like, saved so as through fire.

There’s so many Bible illustrations of this. Remember God delivered Lot, but because Lot… God delivered Lot, but Lot was so interested in the world. It says he turned his tent. So that it opened and all he could see was Sodom. He wanted to see it. He was attracted to that. Reminds me of, what music videos and games and movies people watch. Most of them would be a little bit like looking at Sodom, which is what God is not like and does not love and hates actually, sin. That was what Lot was. He oriented his life to be entertained and to want that. He was saved, so as by fire. By the way, aren’t we glad? Peter tells us we’re going to meet Lot in Heaven. Lot who lost his wife, remember pillar of salt, lost all of his sons in laws. Did you know he had married kids? If you read what Genesis 13 says, all of his family thought he was mocking and they would not escape with him, but he personally grabbed his two daughters, and the rest stayed. Lot lost all of his family, except for his wife and two daughters, which he hand dragged out of Sodom. That’s an example of being saved, so as by fire. We will give account for what we did with our body, and that will determine our eternal rewards.

You say, so what? Wait till we get to chapter 19, which is the 19th class. Which is next week. We will forever wear whatever survives of our Lego creation. You say, what? Listen to what it says. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready and to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. Yay! For the fine linen are the righteous acts of the saints. What you do by faith, with your little building on your table with your Legos, is what you’re going to actually wear forever.

Did you know there are degrees of magnitude in Heaven? Have you noticed that? It says it in chapter 12 of Daniel. I’m not teaching Daniel, but I’m alluding to, the book of Revelation has only 404 verses, but it alludes to 800 passages in the rest of the Bible. One of them is this. In Daniel 12, it says, those that turn men into righteousness will shine like the stars forever. There is something that happens to soul winners. You’re in the right school. You’re preparing in the right place. You can’t get through Word of Life without attempting to lead people to Christ. What’s good about that is that’s a single thing, the only thing you can take with you to Heaven, people, that you’re a part of them getting saved.

Paul said that, 1 Thessalonians 2:19 What is my hope? What is my joy? What is my crown of rejoicing? You! You, Thessalonians, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, you’re the ones I’m taking with me to Heaven. I’m going to stand in front of Christ and say that’s what I spent my life doing. I led those Thessalonians to Christ, not just Thessalonica. He led them to Christ all over the place. He’s going to have a big time up there. What we do with our lives, it says in Revelation, is going to be reflected to everyone for all eternity.

That’s part of why God says, the first verse about Heaven in chapter 21 is, that He’s going to wipe away what? All tears. Why are people that made it to Heaven crying? Because God already said some of them are going to suffer loss. How do we not suffer loss? It’s answered right here in verse 21. I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not repent.

The good news is, persisting in sin is dangerous to our health but God doesn’t want us to persist in sin. I want to explain to you why life is hard for many Christians. Here’s why it’s hard. Warning. Persisting in sin can be dangerous to your health. Here’s what Paul said. For he who eats or drinks in an unworthy manner eats or drinks judgment to himself. What’s the context? It’s talking about the Lord’s Supper. That starts in verse 26. Paul said, I delivered unto you first of all what I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, and He was buried and rose again. Remember that whole thing? And then He said, on this night, after this manor, take the bread and say this is My body which is given for you. When He’s talking about the Gospel, He talks about the Lord’s Supper and how it portrays the Gospel and the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And those who take part in the Lord’s Supper should not eat the bread or drink the cup in an unworthy manner. What does that mean? Verse 30. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. He said, don’t partake in the Lord’s Supper unless you’ve confessed and forsaken all known sin. Confessed and forsaken.

Do you know what a normal Christian is? Someone who goes through life struggling with sin and saying no to it. Someone who goes through life and says, I want to abstain from that. When the football team invited me every Friday… going to go out drinking with us tonight? No, I’m not interested. We’re going to end up, this shows how long ago it was, we’re going to end up in the haylofts. That was their favorite place. We were in a farming community. Can you imagine taking an inebriated girl to a hayloft and finding that to be the highlight of your week? Yeah, I can if you love darkness. You know what God says? Persist, Christians can do that by the way. Persisting in sin brings judgment on yourself.

What’s going on in verse 30? The three levels of chastisement that were going on in Corinth. He said, many are weak among you. There are Christians that have sickness that can’t be, they go to every doctor, they go to Mayo, they go to Cleveland Clinic, they go to Boston General, and they say there’s nothing wrong with you. But they persist in this, there’s something wrong with their body. That was going on in Corinth. It was caused by God because of their unrepentant sin.

Number two, and many not only have this weakness, but then they get a sickness that won’t go away, and they ask the elders to pray for them. In fact, this happened. We had a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association author attending our church where Bonnie and I served. This woman was famous. She wrote articles that millions of people wrote. Her husband had 200 rental properties in our town. Two hundred, that’s millions of dollars. They were godly Christians, uber successful. All of a sudden, she went from this radiant woman in the church down to, she started coming in a wheel chair, she shriveled up. She weighed 80lbs, and going down rapidly, being pushed in a wheelchair. And they pushed her in one morning to our elder prayer on Sunday morning. Her husband said, my wife would like the elders to pray and anoint her because she’s been to, she’s been to every doctor in America, because he could afford it, and they can’t find anything wrong with her. We’d watched all this. I pulled out my Bible and James says, if you are sick, call for the elders of the church and let them anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord. So, I opened James. But it says just before you anoint them, they’re supposed to confess their sin. I read that verse and I got down on my knees in front of her little wheelchair and I looked in her eyes. And she could hardly lift her head. And I said, the Bible says, before I can put the olive oil on you and the elders lay their hands and pray for you, I have to ask you, is there any sin you’re aware of in your life that you are not confessing and forsaking?

And immediately, as I was saying that, the husband went, you always can tell when people look at the floor in the middle of your conversation, something they’re thinking about. And she looked at me, and she could hardly hold her head up, and she said, and just started crying, she said, yes. She said, my husband hurt me. I will never forgive him. I said, Oh. Wow. You want to sit in this, you want to waste away and go to your grave, chastened by God? And she just said, no, I don’t. It was the sweetest time. Happy ending. She said, I’m so aware and that’s why I came here. She said, I knew you were going to do this. I knew the Bible said I had to confess. And she said, yes. She said, my husband hurt me and I got bitter against him and I’ve gotten more and more bitter. She says, I can’t write articles. She said, I can’t sing anymore. I have no joy. I have no peace. I have nothing. She was like 80 some pounds, and we dumped olive oil on her. She just said, by the way she just said, and I was wrong. She looked up at him. It was the sweetest thing. She looked up at her husband… and, oh, he was crying. That would make a great movie. Wow. And we put oil on her and prayed.

You’ve never seen someone just within, I don’t know, two, three months. I don’t know how much women weigh, but she weighed more than 80 pounds and did not look emaciated. She was right out of her wheelchair within a very few weeks, and was the most radiant everything.

Do you know what happened? She first got weak and then she got sick and if she had persisted she would sleep. What is that? Die. That’s what Christians call death. They sleep. Their physical body goes to the ground to await the resurrection. They’re still alive, but their body dies.

Did you know that the Bible says, now look some of you are scratching your head and saying, is that real? I’ve never heard that before. Well, keep reading in Revelation. I will cast her in a sickbed. Who? Jezebel. And those who commit adultery with her in the Great Tribulation, they’re going to be going through all this horrible “I’m not understanding what’s going on.” How do they stop it from happening? How do they stop the sickbed and the tribulation? Repenting. See, God’s solution is always the same. Repent.

The Lord goes on, I’ll kill her children with death. Did you know God says, 1 John chapter 5, there is a sin that leads to death? Did you know, if you’re a Christian, and you persist in sin. If as a Christian I persist in sin, God will first weaken me, that’s stage one. Stage two is, I’ll get a sickness that should not continue, but it won’t stop. And if that doesn’t happen, what happened to the youth leader in my church growing up will happen to you. He was the most amazing youth leader, had blonde hair, super tan, super athletic, rode a motorcycle. He just looked like Brad Pitt, before Brad Pitt. He’s just the most amazing guy. He led our youth group. He could sing, he could teach, and everything. You know what else he did? He prayed upon all the very weak, newly saved young ladies and told them he would disciple them personally. Boy, did he disciple them personally, all alone, and usually sexually. He was confronted in our church. He told the pastor, yeah, I’ll go to another church. They all want me. I’ll never forget, he left our church on his motorcycle. And of course, you know how you can make them only be on one wheel, you know go like that, and it’s just, and he could balance himself and he took off. That week he was messing around with his motorcycle, showing off to someone going about 80 mph because he had one of those banana kind where you, or maybe he’s going a hundred, I don’t know, but where you lay down on. He was looking back at people doing that and the semi-truck in front of him stopped, and he went underneath the truck at 80 or 90 mph. That’s, that is unhealthy. And he died on the spot.

You know what our pastor taught us? I’ll never forget it. He said, you just saw an example. He said, I really believe that guy was saved. He had every indication of knowing the Lord. He said, I’ve known him his whole life. He said, that’s an example of, I will kill her children with death and all the churches will know that I’m He who searches the minds and hearts. I will give every one of you according to your works. God says there’s a sin that leads to death.

By the way, by chastening, God is assuring us we’re saved. It says in Hebrews 12, My son don’t despise the chastening of the Lord. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, He scourges every son. This is what God does to Christians.

Chastening is something that we feel, it’s emotional anxiety, it’s distress, it leads to weakness and sickness. Why?

Because Satan wants to bring people into the depths of Satan, that’s what’s going on, the depths of Satan, this disobedience to the Lord. Satan’s goal is to steal and kill and destroy, and the consequence engine of God, Galatians 6. God is not mocked. Whatever you sow, you’re going to reap. If you sow to your flesh, you’ll get corruption, which God says starts with weakness, continues to sickness, and ends in death. But the good news is, if you sow the Spirit, you get life.

By the way, what does the grace of God say? And we’ll pick up with that at the beginning of the hour next time. Have a great break.