“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” (Revelation 3:19)
The occurrence of the word Repent in the messages to the Seven Churches is truly remarkable. The word Repentance — in the mind of the average Christian–is connected with sinners and not with professing Christians. And yet the word used throughout the New Testament in the presentation of the Gospel message to sinners is exactly the same word repeated by our Lord in His messages to the Seven Churches.
The word Repent occurs over seven times in these seven messages. It is omitted from two of them–Smyrna, the poor, persecuted Church–for a church in persecution is generally a purified one, and Philadelphia, the loyal Church, the Church that had kept the faith. The noun metanoia (repentance) is defined variously as a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of attitude, or a change of direction.
A hard-hitting and convicting sermon. Listen and take to heart!
“Can the life of a Christian make God sick to His stomach? Yes or no? You better believe it. And the question is, are you one of those people? Is your church one of those churches?” – Mark Cahill
It seems to me that my text accounts for the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans.
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: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. (Rev 3:17-18)
They were lukewarm because they imagined themselves rich when they were poor.
Two conditions will help us to escape lukewarmness.
Thesis 1 – The evangelical church at large has forgotten that the chief end of man is to glorify God.
(Romans 16:27; I Corinthians 6:20; Matthew 6:9)
Thesis 2 - Evangelicals ignore most of the methods, practices and principles found in Acts chapter 2.
(Acts 2:42, 44, 46; 2:38)
Thesis 3 - We meet for one hour a week and consider that apostolic church. Many evangelicals treat church like any other social club or sports event that they attend.
(Acts 2:46; Hebrews 10:25; Acts 1:14)
Lord Jesus, give me a deeper repentance,
a horror of sin, a dread of its approach.
Help me chastely to flee it
and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be Yours alone.
Give me a deeper trust,
that I may lose myself to find myself in You,
the ground of my rest,
the spring of my being.Give me a deeper knowledge of Yourself
as Savior, Master, Lord, and King.Give me deeper power in private prayer,
more sweetness in Your Word,
more steadfast grip on its truth.Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,
and let me not seek moral virtue apart from You.
There are many churches today that keep a strict accounting of how many people they drew to Christ, whether through street witnessing, evangelistic crusades, or other means of outreach. This is all well and good, but too few keep an accounting of how many people they turned off to the gospel of Christ, by not living what they preach, by focusing more on the things of this earth than the kingdom of God, and by not being a living testimony of the grace and work of Jesus.
One of the most subtle and destructive works of the enemy, is that of taking sincere souls and convincing them to practice a false Christianity, a hyper spirituality that has nothing to do with the work of God in their lives, but that is simultaneously close enough to doctrinal truth that they feel justified in their practice.
Before going any further, I need to make two points that I realize will not sit well with some.
THE WORD FEAR DEFINED
Fear is either expressive of reverence or terror.
Fear as terror is generally expressed by the Hebrew words magor, and pacadh, and by the Greek word phobos.
Fear as being reverence is denominated in Hebrew as yirah, and in Greek as eulabeia. However, these words are occasionally also used without this distinction.
Fear issues forth from love—either for ourselves or for God. Self-love engenders fear when something occurs which could deprive us of something good or whereby some evil could befall us. We fear deprivation, or the evil itself, and whatever or whoever would deprive us of that which is good, or whereby evil could be inflicted upon us.
God has created self-love in man and wills that we make use of it. The law requires that we love our neighbor as ourselves (Mat 22:39). It is therefore not sinful to fear deprivation and evil. This fear was inherent in Adam’s nature prior to the fall, even though there was no occasion for this fear to arise in him. The Lord Jesus also had such fear (cf. Mat 26:37; Heb 5:7). One may indeed be fearful of death and other discomforts, and thus also of wild animals and evil men.
