End Of Days Health Warnings

WOLFL-2024-07

Transcript

Let’s talk about the grace of God. The rest of your life, people are going to talk to you about, but I’m under grace. I believe in the grace of God. And you look at Him and you say, yes, I believe in the grace of God too. What does the grace of God mean? Let’s look how Paul defines it. Paul wrote these words sitting in the city of Corinth as he’s writing to his son in the faith, Titus, pastoring on the island of Crete. So, Paul wrote Titus from Crete, from Corinth to Titus in Crete as a pastor who lived with some of the worst sinning people. Cretans are lazy beasts, their own poet said, and Paul said it’s true.

So, what did Paul say about grace? The grace of God that brought you salvation, and of course, the grace of God is Jesus Christ. He’s the essence of God’s grace. Grace is not an ethereal quality. It’s reflected in Christ. So, grace is Christ, giving us all the power and desire to do everything that He wants us to do, has appeared to all men so Jesus came and shared the Gospel to the world, and what’s the essence of the gracious grace filled message? Teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. If you were saved by grace, Jesus Christ is in a lifelong teaching session with us to teach us to deny ungodliness, to deny worldly lusts, to live soberly. You know what soberly means? Not intoxicated. You’re not breathing in the poisons of this world and getting intoxicated by them. Righteously, that’s according to God’s plan. Godly, that’s like God in this present age. The whole purpose we’re saved is for grace to teach us to live in this world a godly life. That’s what grace teaches. How do you do it? Verse 13, looking for the blessed hope. I’m expecting Jesus to come.

And so back to our friends in Thyatira, the letter ends from Jesus, hold fast what you have till I come. He who overcomes, remember in every church, there were people that claimed to be Christians and weren’t, and there were real Christians. And Jesus, at the end of every letter, says, I know that among you listening to me, some of you are fakes, and some of you are real. The real ones are the overcomers. The real ones hear My voice. The real ones have experienced My grace, and something will happen to them. Like we talked about two days ago, a new heart God gives us, and we have Him within us. So, the overcomers, the true believers in every church, will keep My works to the end. That’s called the perseverance of the saints. And those who are really saved and evidence that, I will give power over the nations. He’s talking now about the future. He, that’s Christ, is going to rule them with a rod of iron. He will dash in pieces like the potter’s vessel, all those. But, as I received from My father, Jesus said He was following God’s will.

But look at verse 28. To these overcomers, the true Christians, even in Thyatira, I will give him the morning star. The morning star. For us, that’s either, what, Venus or Mercury? You ever think about that? Jesus can promise something of that level? Jeff Bezos gave his wife a five hundred-million-dollar yacht, and the world, yeah it went [Dr. Barnett whistles], and you know what? That’s great, until it sinks, or someone steals it, or it runs into an island, or whatever happens to it. But look at this. Jesus said, I can give you the morning star. Now that, there’s a lot of meaning to that, and we could go on and on, but we’ve got to get to the next hour. But back to Christians. He who has an ear… you’re not a Christian because you go to church, because you’ve been baptized, because you prayed a prayer, because your parents say you’re a Christian. You’re a Christian because you heard the voice of Jesus. Jesus defines salvation as, My sheep hear My voice, they know Me, they follow Me. Some of you are having trouble following the Lord, because you don’t really know Him, you don’t really hear Him. You don’t really follow Him, and you’re stuck around all these people that are doing something that you can’t figure out how they’re doing it. And it’s because it only comes supernaturally. You get a brand-new operating system. You get a new heart, you get a new spirit, and you want to do this. See, that’s the thing. You want to hear His voice. You do hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Just before I go, I have to share this. This is one of my heroes in the faith. His name is Charlie Thomas Studd, C.T. Studd. You can see him up in the upper, right? That’s his biography, the upper, right? That’s the cover I put there for you. It’s he’s called the cricketeer and pioneer. The short of it is his father owned as much of India, in the old days, in the 1860’s, he actually had a plantation in India bigger than some American states. We’re talking about millions of acres. So, this guy was uber wealthy. The bottom right is one of their many homes in England. And Bonnie and I, when we teach every year in England, we take our students there. That’s where C. T. Studd lived. He lived in that mansion. and became a sports superstar. He still has athletic records in England. No one has beaten his statistics. See, he was a professional athlete with a mega, think of, he had, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet kind of father. He was uber wealthy in his day. His father didn’t even know how much he had. You own millions of acres, and farms, and plantations, and animals, and crops, and ships, and houses, But C.T. Studd moved to the upper left corner. That’s his hut, where he lived for twenty-one years in Africa. He started out fifteen years that he was in China, then he went for six years to India, to see where his dad owned, all that land, as a missionary. But while he was in India, he was told there was a place that needed the Gospel even more than India. And it was the very center, the heart of Africa, because the British explorers found these pygmy cannibals. Now a pygmy is a short person, a cannibal is a person that eats humans. And so, there were tribes of pygmy, short, cannibals. They just killed each other and roasted and ate people. And he said, how do you reach them? And they said, we don’t know. Everyone that goes there gets killed and eaten.

So, he packed up in India. By the way, he gave away his wealth to Hudson Taylor and George Mueller and Booth, Salvation Army, D. L. Moody. He gave all of his dad’s money away, became a missionary, moved to that hut in the upper left corner, and for twenty-one years lived among the cannibals. And God wanted him to reach them because they never ate him. They didn’t kill him.

At his death, after twenty-one years, the people who were demon infested, his stories, you ought to, if you want to, my favorite book I ever read when I was your age was C. T. Studd, Cricketeer and Pioneer. He said these people would, they found all the alcohol they could drink, they had native drugs like peyote that they would smoke, and they would get into a trance and a frenzy and dance around until they were just in this murderous frenzy and then they go out killing in the dark and they would just kill and drag them back and they collected their heads, they dried them and hung them in their tents, it just was awful. He said they were the houses of demons. They were, by the way, they wore no clothing. They were naked pygmy cannibal savages. And he lived there. And every day in the morning, he’d come out from his tent and sit at the fire. And anybody that would sit there, he would talk to them. He learned their language, the hard way, the slow way.

After twenty-one years at his death, his son-in-law came to see him. Norman C. Grubb, the guy that wrote that book. He said my father’s tent was surrounded by five thousand former headhunting pygmy cannibals. He said they were all wearing banana leaves, because when they got saved, they realized you shouldn’t be naked anymore, so they made themselves clothes out of banana leaves, however you do that. And he said their once habitation of demon bodies were now filled with the Spirit. He taught them hymns, and he died to five thousand of his own converts, singing the hymns he taught them, sitting around his hut. They would sit there all day long and just sing to him because they didn’t want to miss his going to Heaven. That’s the power of consecration. I could tell you a shelf of books about people that experienced that morning star power. And by the way, they’re not going to get to Heaven empty handed, I can assure you. And I hope you don’t get to Heaven empty handed either.

Now we get to chapter 3. We’re in Revelation 3, so buckle up, we’re ten minutes behind. This now, if you get to chapter 3, we’re looking at the church in Laodicea. And notice what it says. And Sardis. And “to the church, the angel of the church in Sardis write, these things says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, I know you have a name, you’re alive, but you’re really dead.”

The Church of Sardis is a real warning for us today, us Christians living in what God calls the end of days. And I call it a health warning. Don’t become like the people of Sardis.

What was the message to them? Even to Sardis, who Jesus said they look like they were all not Christians. He said you’re dead. You don’t even act like you’re alive in Christ. You need Jesus.

What does Jesus do? Jesus helps us understand that He knows the plan, and we can know His plan, we know why we’re here, we know where we’re going.

And to that group of people who are living, you notice it says on that map, at the epicenter, I told you the first two days, that those seven churches were in the most civilized part of the Roman Empire. They were in the most advanced part of the Roman Empire. They had the most advanced architecture, the most advanced aqueducts, the most amazing temples, and the most pressure on Christians. And these Christians in Sardis were not listening to Jesus’ warnings about their health.

This morning, by the way, when I finished my Bible study, I was looking at the headlines and I was reading, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen this, micro nano plastic, which is in everyone’s bloodstream now, they’re finding plastic in every blood draw they’re taking of people. nano plastic particles that you’re breathing. They go in your lungs, they go through the respiration, the transference of oxygen in the blood, and they’re nanoparticles, so they go from your lungs to your blood. But guess where they found them this morning? They’re starting to build up in people’s brains. Your brain, the blood that feeds the most blood intensive organ, keeps us alive and everything running, is starting to collect nanoparticles. So, what they’re saying is you should watch your health. God is saying the same thing. He comes and gives us a Spiritual MRI or CAT scan or whatever you want to call it.

And look what He writes. He says, I know your works, you have a name, but you’re dead. Jesus is the only one that gives us an honest assessment of how we’re doing spiritually.

Now what’s the right diet? What keeps us from getting nanoparticles of sin built up in our brains? Think of nano plastic like sin. What keeps us from having a bunch of pictures and a bunch of lyrics and a bunch of memories and a bunch of hurts of people that harmed me, and that makes me bitter and angry and resentful and fighting and anxious and everything else, all the bad things? Look at this. This is Jeremiah. Jeremiah wrote the longest book in the Old Testament. Did you know that? Did you know there are more Hebrew words in the book of Jeremiah than any other book, even the Psalms? It’s the longest Hebrew word count book in the Bible. Jeremiah was an amazing guy. God put him through the ringer. He was a prophet that got to write the most words, but God said you’re never going to get married. He actually told him that. He said, you can’t be married, you can’t be, have a happy home, you can’t have a wife, you’re always going to be alone. And Jeremiah wrote Lamentations.

You ever read Lamentations? It’s one of the saddest books in the Bible. That’s his testimony. When you get to chapter 3, he says, I feel trapped, I feel dark, I feel a gravestone that there’s no name on it, nobody remembers me, I’m forgotten. He really had a hard time. How did he survive? How did he keep out of giving up, ending his own life or whatever? He tells us, Your words were found, that’s what devotions are, looking you look for God in this book. Your words were found, and I ate them. You know what that is? It’s more than reading. Be careful you don’t just read the Bible. A lot of people just read it. You know what Americans think? That it, that the goal of reading is to finish reading it. You just get it done and check it off. No, Jeremiah said, I found your voice, I heard you, and I ate it. That means that you, do you know what eating does? What you ate last night is now at the molecular level of your body. It has passed into the actual cells of your body. It, what you ate, this process of digestion, brought it into, it’s part of you. Does that happen when you read the Bible? Or do you just read it? Is it just done? Did you get your assignment done? See, Jeremiah said, no, I’m searching for God. I find His words, and I can’t believe He’s talking to me, and I eat them. We call that meditation. Where you think deeply about the Word of God. You don’t rush through it. That’s why you’re doing the devotional project. That’s making you think how you can apply it to yourself in that prayer. So, you’ve got to search the chapter until you find something you can apply. So, he says, I find your word, I eat them. And as I’m eating them and digesting them, look what happens. Your Word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

Why was he so happy and rejoicing? He didn’t have a wife. All of his relatives rejected him. They threw him in a pit of mud. You remember all the things that happened to Jeremiah? It’s just horrible. He was rejected by his nation. When he wrote the Bible, the king cut it up and threw it in the fire. He was not a missionary anybody was supported. When he wrote back his prayer letters, he said, no one has responded yet to the Gospel. As far as we know, no one responded to Jeremiah’s ministry, and he ministered for decades. Would you support a missionary like that? You can’t tell him come home, why don’t you do something else? You’re not succeeding. We’re so into success from our perspective. He was a success to God because he showed us that nothing can go for you in life. You can be alone and unloved and hated and harmed and forgotten. But look what he had, joy and rejoicing in my heart for one purpose. I’m called by Your name. He said the only thing I need in life is to know I belong to You, God. I don’t care if no one accepts your message. I care, but I’m not going to be devastated if no one will listen to You. It doesn’t matter if no one will marry me, I have You. It doesn’t matter if my relatives don’t like me, I have You. Doesn’t that sound like the theme of Revelation? Jesus is all I need. That’s what’s revealed in Revelation. Revelation is the unveiling of Christ as what? Everything I need.

What do you need? How to resist temptation. What do you need? How to not be afraid. What do you need? How to not be anxious. What do you need? Not to be self-centered. I was born self-centered. When my mom would offer a plate of cookies, which one do you think I took? The best one. The biggest one. They had the most chocolate chips. Who else should get it but me? That’s how we’re born. But when we’re born again, that’s not how we are. We’re changed. We have joy in the Lord.

Continuing with the Sardians, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain for they are ready to die. Now real quickly, I want you to know that in every one of these letters, Jesus reveals that He actually knows where they live, and He knows something about their city. Now all of you come from somewhere. When Bonnie and I served in Kalamazoo, Michigan. That’s the actual name of a city, Kalamazoo. Do you know what Kalamazoo means? It’s a Native American word. It means bubbling springs. Now you probably don’t know that because you didn’t live there. You just say, oh, Kalamazoo. Interesting pronunciation of a word. So, there’s something about your town that you know because you live there. Like you’re from Hershey, Pennsylvania, where they make the chocolate. Or you’re from Detroit, where, the cars came from, or whatever it is.

Do you know what Jesus does? He drops clues that He knows where they live. Look at this. Be watchful. What city is this? Anybody know what city we’re on? Say it out loud. Sardis? Sardis? Isn’t that where we are? Chapter 3. Did you know Sardis was an impregnable city? Do you know what impregnable means? They were never conquered. You could put on every armor you want; they couldn’t conquer that city. Why? It was on a thousand-foot-high plateau, like a butte or something. And by the time you tried to scale up the rocks, they would shoot arrows or throw rocks at you. It was like Masada, only it was so far away from everything, you couldn’t build a ramp up to it.

By the way, this is a famous town. This is where Aesop’s fables were written. You ever heard of Aesop? How about Midas’s touch? Have we ever heard of that? He’s from this city too. How about King Croesus? All of these people were from this city and everyone loved it because no one could conquer it. And so, if you were there, you were safe.

Okay, be watchful. They were never attacked by an army and conquered, but one time they were conquered a different way. They got so lax, the defensive perimeter, that the soldiers used to play games on the walls. Because all they had to do is walk on the walls and warn people if someone was climbing up and they’d shoot them. And so, one day, one of the soldiers playing a game set his helmet down on the wall, was playing the game and bumped against his helmet, and the helmet went, and fell a thousand feet down to the bottom. And all soldiers had to have their helmets, when they went back to barracks. And so, this guy just ran down to the end of the wall, slipped around, and went. There were unseen handholds and steps that you could not see from afar, that had been built all the way around the thing for all the people that dropped their helmets and dropped their swords and their spears. But no attacker would ever notice these things because you’re coming up and looking for arrows. And this army had staked out Sardis. And they had people watching it constantly. And that person watching that corner saw that soldier go, and went back to base camp and said, they have entrances all the way around this place. You just don’t see them. And they went up and crept up at night, and found them all, and conquered the place.

So, that watchful, they were accused of not being watchful, the city. Jesus said, I know your history. Your city didn’t watch. They were overconfident. Strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. So, this verse says four things. They lacked vigilance. They weren’t watchful. You heard that in Don Locke’s sermon yesterday. Watch out for your adversary, the devil. He’s like a lion that’s stalking you.

This church didn’t fear. They were spiritually weak. They needed strengthening. They lacked discernment. They didn’t know they were so close to death. They lacked maturity. They were not perfect. Their works were not mature.

Jesus goes on, and He’s going to say a lot more to them. Remember, therefore, how you’ve received and heard, and hold fast and repent. I call this God’s chemo. Every church, and those of you that were in New York I don’t know whether the camera followed me, but I constantly was pacing and saying, no matter how many steps you take away from the Lord, His chemo is always, you remember who you’re walking away from when you sin and when I sin, and you repent. That’s a change of mind. That leads to a change of behavior. And I say, I don’t want to persist in this sin. I don’t want to allow Satan to win. I don’t want to be gripped by anger or lust or bitterness or fear. When we repent, no matter how far away from the Lord we are, Boom. We’re right. We don’t have to do penance like the Roman Catholic Church teaches, which is crawling on your knees and begging to be taken back. We come instantly back. That’s Christ’s treatment plan. The chemo of remembering and repent.

But therefore, now look, He’s back to their history. “If you will not watch, I will come on you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come.” Those attackers came up in the night, and came up all those walkways, and they conquered Sardis. They didn’t even have to attack the gates.

What was going on in Sardis? They were lethargic and dull. They were overconfident. They were acting dead. They were not fearing the devil. They were not fleeing sin. And those are two deadly conditions Jesus can remedy by remembering and repenting.

Now we get to verse 4. I have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments. So, that means, even though the rest of them were looking like lost people, within the church there were still some that were not getting into the depths of Satan like Thyatira and not defiling their garments. They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. And then He describes a Christian. He who overcomes. This is what Christians are. We clothed in a white garment.

Now look at this. This is where I started college ministry. I was at Tulsa, Oklahoma and one of our elders says, hey, did you know University of Tulsa and OSU and all that? They have all these kids that have questions about the Bible, and no one will come to them. I said, why won’t anyone come? They said they meet at 11 at night and most pastors aren’t around at 11 at night. I said, where do they meet? They said, oh, in the chapel. They just sit there asking pastors to come answer their questions. I said, I’ll go. One of the very, and I started going, it was most fascinating time. I started doing Q&A’s. I think college kids have the best questions. You know what one of them asked me? One of the first Q&A’s with several hundred college kids all lopping around. They don’t even, they just lop around. You think they’re not listening, but they are. They just lop around. They lay on the floor. They’re doing all kinds of stuff, but they’re all listening. That’s the most fascinating thing. You guys can listen and some of you look like you’re sleeping, and I know you’re listening. Look at that.

Look what it says there. I will not blot his name from the Book of Life. How many of you have ever wondered what that meant? Think about it. That is a burning question for church, people that have been touched by the church. The unpardonable sin, and what does it mean to be blotted out of the Book of Life? Does that mean I, what? Lose my salvation? Isn’t that what it sounds like? If you do too much, too long, too bad, one too many times, I won’t forgive you. Is that what He said? Not worse than I won’t forgive you, I’m going to blot you out of the Book of Life. You are going to hell. As a pastor for decades, that was the number one thing that people came to my office for. You know what it was? Christians who didn’t feel they were saved, or they thought they aren’t saved anymore. They lost their salvation. That is a common problem, even though most people don’t talk about it. They really wonder down deep. Okay, what does that mean? Back to their history. Do you remember Croesus, Aesop, Midas, and all that, and the impregnable city? If you were a citizen of Sardis, you had it made. You were in the safest spot in Asia Minor. Nobody could get you, except when you aren’t watching and they climb up the wall, which only happened once, and they solved that problem. The king found the city got too crowded. Everyone wanted to live there. So, people that he didn’t like or weren’t loyal, he did just that. He blotted their name from the list of citizens of Sardis. Only citizens could live inside the city. The rest had to live outside with all the animals and marauding bandits. They knew from their history, that there was a capricious king who was not nice. If you weren’t what he wanted you to be, he crossed you off the list and threw you out of the city.

Now think what Jesus said, he who overcomes will be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name from the Book of Life. Put in that same verse that you know from Hebrews, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Is that Jesus saying, I will leave you and forsake you? Or is He saying what He’s saying, I will never leave you. Does that mean He wants to leave you or forsake you? Does that mean I want to blot you out of the Book of Life? He’s saying the opposite. He says, I will never be like the King Croesus that crossed you up. I will never blot you out.

See, the nice thing I found with people that would come in and tell me that they’d lost their salvation, I said, OK, I understand. I understand that. But just tell me what you lost. Tell me about, oh, they tell me about how they were saved, and how the Lord convicted them, how they called the name of the Lord, and how their life changed, but now they’ve lost that. I said, oh, the good news then, we just have to go to the Gospel of John, and tell you that you didn’t save yourself, you were saved by the Lord, He holds you, and you can’t unhold Him, He is holding you. And salvation is not how hard you hold on to God, but the fact He’s holding on to you. So, you can’t lose something you never had, and once you have it, you can never lose it, is basically what John chapter 6 and 10 tell us, and Hebrews tells us, and everything else. And so, the most comforting thing for the people who thought they lost their salvation is for them to revisit how they receive salvation, and then understand what salvation means. See, God doesn’t undo the fact of Christ completely paying the price of all of our sins, and to erase you from the Lamb’s Book of Life, which is the eternal registry of those who have become truth lovers. You know that. Salvation is, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 says, unsaved people never receive a love of the truth. Jesus is the way, the what? Truth, and the what? Life. When you get saved, when I got saved, I became a truth lover. And the Book of Life is the eternal registry of the inhabitants of Heaven who are lovers of the truth. But we cover that in chapter 17, so let’s keep going.

So, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says. Intimacy with God is offered to those who resist sin and Satan, and assurance of salvation. White garments, I will confess his name before My Father, we’re going to cover that soon next week. I think that’s what happens at the moment of our death, when our body dies, Jesus does this, I confess your name before My Father, He introduces us to God. But what happens when we act like the people of Sardis?

Bonnie and I had the privilege for four years of traveling the world and speaking to actually thousands of medical missionaries. They would come to these conferences to get trained in their medical practice, and Bonnie and I were the Spiritual mental healthcare providers. Now I just want to tell you what sin can do. This jungle doctor that we met at this conference, Franklin Graham paid five million dollars to build a hospital in this very desperate Islamic country. And this doctor built the hospital. He brought in doctors and nurses at the request of the government because there was no hospital in hundreds of miles. So, they allowed a Christian hospital in a Muslim country because there was no hospital for hundreds of miles and people would be dragged there and brought on donkeys and in wheelbarrows. And the doctor’s wives were Wycliffe translators or the nurse’s husbands were Wycliffe translators. And the Islamic government knew that, and they told them, as long as you don’t proselytize outside your compound, and as long as you keep the hospital, we’ll overlook what you’re doing. And they do. That happens all over the world because they need the medical care. So, this doctor had a flourishing, unreached people group ministry which were going out, learning the languages of every tribe, coming back, translating them into hospital, getting the Bibles, getting them back, they didn’t proselytize, they just delivered them. They would witness to all the people that came to the hospital. And it was thriving. And an American mission team from an American church that supported that doctor came and said, we’d like to paint your hospital and provide childcare for all of the doctors and nurses because you guys never get, you can go into town, have dinner, and we’re going to watch the kids and give you a whole week of, relaxation. During the week of relaxation, one of the church missions team members molested, physically molested the two-year-old daughter of this doctor. And the team left, and he didn’t know about it. And the little girl said, bad man touched me. And the father said, bad man who touched you where? And of course, they prosecuted the guy, and he was, I don’t know how he got around the background checks. So, that happened and he, went to jail and everything, but it didn’t end.

He got infected with bitterness. Do you know what happened? He said, God, I gave up my practice in Boston. I was making $600,000 a year, fifteen years ago. I gave it all up. I gave my cars, my house, my gates, my kids and private schools to come to this God forsaken place where they hate us and deny Christ for my daughter to get molested, ruin her for life. I’m leaving. And he did. Shut down the hospital. Told them all to go home. Stop your translation work. It’s done. See, that’s what bitterness does. He announced that, and he came to the conference. He had to come to the conference to officially resign with Samaritan’s Purse. So, he’s sitting there, and guess what? Bonnie and I were invited in.

We flew in from, wherever we were. And they said, you can speak on anything. I said, Oh, great. I always speak on whatever I’m teaching anywhere else. And I was teaching through the Lord’s Prayer where I was. And so, I taught on the Lord’s Prayer. What does the Lord’s Prayer say? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. You know that part. You all know that. Everyone knows it. Do you know what the very next word after the Lord’s Prayer is? If you don’t forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you. Have you guys read that? That’s the exact next two verses after the Lord’s Prayer. So, I was teaching on the sin of bitterness. The man is sitting there, in his scrubs, I love those scrubs the doctors wear, they’re so cool. And stethoscope around his neck, sitting there, and this is how he sat. He had to go through the session. And after the session he was going to go resign. So, I’m projecting up on the screen the seven signs of bitterness. I got through the first one, described it, volatile anger, explosive anger, that’s how bitter people are, just, everything makes them mad, and they blow up. Loss of feeling any Spiritual desire, that’s another evidence of bitterness. By the time I’m on the third one, Dr. Bitter, he goes like this, and he’s reading that slide, and then he goes like this, and he turns to his wife, and , there are nine hundred other doctors and nurses in this little area in Thailand, where we’re teaching them, and so he whispers and mouths to his wife, he goes is that me? What he’s saying is, am I bitter like that? His wife told me, she said, I was paralyzed. She said, I thought he has blown up at me and yelled at me and screamed at me and exploded at me so many times. If I look at him and say, yeah, you’re ruining the ministry. You’re ruining the Gospel going forward. You’re destroying all the lives of these people that have attached to the hospital and you’re making it even worse for our daughter. You’re going to take her home and defeat after she was, molested and everything. She said, so if I say yes, he’ll blow up at me. And then she sat there and said, I thought if I don’t say anything. It’ll probably continue. So, she turned and looked at him and said, that is you.

He told me, he said, I didn’t hear another word you said. I said, isn’t that great? He stopped listening to me and he started listening to the Lord. That’s what I hope some of you do. That I’ll say enough about the Bible that finally it’ll connect, and you’ll start doing something about it. He bowed his head in his little scrubs, and right there, and repented of his anger and bitterness and wrath and quitting and self-centeredness and everything else. And then he just begged the Lord to help him not destroy this whole ministry and asked the Lord to protect his daughter and everything else. He said his whole life changed in an, just in an instant right there sitting in his scrubs in that chair. How did I know about this? We’re walking, Bonnie and I are walking after the session, this big, handsome, doctor in his scrubs with his stethoscope, walked up and says I didn’t listen to a word you said after the third slide. I said, oh, thanks for telling me. I said, I’m used to that. Students sleep all the time in my classes. He said, no, let me tell you what happened. And he went back, and that hospital is today flourishing, and the Gospel is going forth. They’re still protected in that Muslim country. They’re translating the Bible, and his little daughter is growing up seeing the power of the grace of God. Now, sin has consequences, but no matter how many steps we take away from the Lord, It’s just one beautiful step back. We’re just like that doctor instantly as close to God as we could be.

We have eleven minutes and let’s do the normal Christian life. Let’s do the best church of all before we go to our next break. And the next church is the church in Philadelphia. It starts in chapter 3 verse 7, and basically Philadelphia is the only church Jesus doesn’t criticize anything about them. Doesn’t say they’re doing anything wrong. Now were they sinners? You bet they were. Are all Christians sinners? Yes. We’re forgiven and we’re liberated, and no sin has dominion over us. Why? Because as soon as we’re convicted, we confess and forsake, we repent, and we ask for cleansing. So, we’re not perfect. We’re just faithfully going through the process of confession, forsaking, repentance and all.

So, what does the church look like that? Jesus revealed Himself the church and to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write, and this is the most unique of all of His introductions. Remember I told you every letter, Jesus introduces Himself. So, for this church, this is the ultimate church. If you want to know how to live the Christian life, where Jesus says, there’s nothing I can point out that’s going wrong in your life. Wouldn’t you want to be there? Wouldn’t you want to be that kind of a Christian? That Jesus says, you’re operating the way I designed you to operate. What does that look like? Look at this introduction. These things says He who is holy, He who is true, He who has the key of David. What is that doing in there? This is the New Testament. What is the key of David’s stuff? See, you shouldn’t be comfortable well-adjusted readers. You should be, why is that there? And get a study Bible or use your Logos or whatever. That exactly comes from Isaiah 22:22. And it’s about this whole event in the Old Testament, which I’ll talk about in a minute. But look what He says next. He who opens and no one shuts and shuts, and no one opens.

Now the first lesson to think about is Jesus opens doors of ministry. After that fantastic introduction, look what He says in the next verse. I know your works, you’re doing great. I have set before you an open door. I think of you. That’s why I said this morning is really great. God has set an open door before you. Each one of you. Now that open door might be going back home to work in meta electronics or something. I heard a new one I’ve never heard before this morning, industrial design with electronics or something like that. Or maybe he’s sending you to be a worship leader, or you’re going to Liberty, or you’re going, one of you is going to Masters, I heard. It doesn’t matter what you’re going to, but God sets before us open doors. And when God opens a door, no one can shut it. Even we have little strength. See the church in Philadelphia probably was a tiny church and they had little strength. They didn’t have a big staff. They didn’t have a big building. They didn’t have mega anything. But what did they have? They kept My Word. Jesus was very pleased with this church.

So, what I call this is the four keys to Spiritual health in a hostile world. Imagine trying to live in Dubai before it rained yesterday. This is what Dubai looks like before it rained yesterday. Do you all hear about the rain and the storm, and they got a year’s worth of rain and everything? Usually it’s like this, where it’s very, hostile and deadly.

What did you notice when I read those verses? Look at the wording, I put them in bold for you. These things says He, He, I, I! Everything about this church was anchored to Christ. We hear very little about them, all about Jesus. That’s one of the signs of a healthy Christian. It’s all about Jesus, not about them.

The first truth is Jesus is holy. And Jesus wants holiness. Look at the verse I gave you. In Peter, He who called you is holy, so you be holy in all your conduct. Guess what? Jesus found them holy. Does that mean that, they were very prune faced and puritanical or whatever? No. Holiness means set apart for God’s use. It’s sanctified. That’s what we are. And we just, step in the circle and say, I want to do whatever You want me to do. We surrender, we submit, we say, I’m not aware of any unconfessed, unforsaken sin. That’s all holiness is. Be holy in all your conduct. They were committed to being holy.

Secondly, Jesus said, I’m true. You know what that means? He wants truthfulness. What does truth do? Look what Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him. If you abide My Word, you’re My disciples and you’ll know the truth, and the truth makes you free. Did you know you can be free from anything you want to be free from? You can be free from being enslaved to your past.

You want to know what my past is like? I’ll tell you about my past. I grew up with a father who grew up in a coal mining camp, who was a golden gloves boxer. My father’s hands were twice as big as mine. When my father made a fist, it was as big as like a giant grapefruit or something. He had massive hands. He was a boxer. My father did not know how to raise children. This is how he raised me. If I did anything wrong, he’d grab me around the neck with that giant hand, he would push me against the wall. He’d lift me off the floor. I’m turning the color of the second in from the back row, red, like that sweatshirt, that hoodie, over here, bright red, holding me against the wall, he would squeeze my neck, looking into my eyes and he’d say, if you do that one more time, I’ll break your neck. And he dropped me on the floor. That was me. My mother pestered him all the time. My mother even threw plates at him, which is not good to do to someone that’s volatile. He would let her pester and pester, and he would just, he wouldn’t even look at her. He would go like this, and finally when he was about this far away, he’d go, poof. I would see my mother knocked out. He was so good, one punch knocked out a person. And she’d lay on the ground, and us kids would cry and yell, and he’d say, don’t touch her. Now, how would you like to grow up in a home like that? Doesn’t that make you happy and well connected to people and everything else? So, I grew up what would you call it? Injured, handicapped? I could probably be in some social program, taking a lot of drugs because I’m warped by my, I was molested. I mean, whatever you want to call that, it would be. I was physically abused. But guess what?

By the way, my dad died, my best friend. I was holding his hand. He was singing so loudly, Blessed Assurance and Amazing Grace. He was one of the best Bible teachers I knew. He was just going through those early years. He got saved out of a bar and met my mom in the bar and didn’t have a lot of good training, but boy, he got the training and grew, and it was wonderful. And to my father and to me, look at this. If you know the truth shall make you free. You do not have to be captured by any event in your past, by any sin, by any sinner that harmed you, by any fear, by any bitterness, by any lust, by any anything. That’s the truth. And if you believe that, the truth will set you free. And by the way, the people in Philadelphia believed that, and they were set free.

So, Jesus holds the key and offers access. What is the access? He who has My commandments and keeps them is one that loves Me, and he who loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and We will manifest ourself to him. Boy, you talk about access. Jesus holds the key. In Isaiah 22:22, where this comes from, the steward of the king was the only one you would come to if you wanted to see the king. Jesus said, I’m the steward of the king of the universe, the God, your Father, and I want to open the way for you. Do you believe that? And they did. So, they believed He was holy, so they wanted to be holy. They believed He was true, they believed the truth, and it changed them. They believed Jesus was opening the access to God, and they got it, and boy, the Lord loved it.

 And Jesus opens, and no one can shut. Jesus opens doors of ministry. I love the gravestone of David. The epitaph on David’s gravestone, God wrote it. It’s in Acts 13:36. David, after he served the purpose of God in his own generation, that’s the epitaph God wrote for David in Acts 13:36, in Paul’s sermon to Antioch and Pisidia. How would you like the Lord to say that about you? I want the Lord to say that about me. Do you want the Lord to say that about you? Is that on your mind? Is that a target? The greatest thing is to serve God’s purpose in my generation. How did Jack Wurtzen put it? It’s the purpose of every generation to reach their generation, something along that line. That’s exactly what the Bible says. And that’s what Acts 13:36 says.

It’s hard though. Look at next, verse 10. You have kept My commandment to persevere. I will keep you from the hour of trial, which will come upon the whole world. Oh, Philadelphia, if you look at the seven churches, how many minutes do we have here? Oh, I have forty seconds. The seven churches present church history very easily. Ephesus is like the apostolic church. Smyrna is the suffering church. Pergamos, and Sardis, and Thyatira, like the middle-aged church. Philadelphia is like the missionary church, where the church got liberated back to sharing the Gospel in the world. Laodicea is like us, rich, increasing goods, have need of nothing. This is saying to the Philadelphian church, a promise Jesus made in the book of 2 Thessalonians, and 1 Thessalonians, and other places, that we have not been appointed to wrath. We’re not going to go through the tribulation.