Our scripture lesson this morning is taken from the New Testament in the book of Revelation chapter 3 Reading verses 14 through 22. We are continuing with this the last of the seven parts series that Pastor Malone began and this is the letter to the Church of Leodicea Revelation 3 14 through 22 and And to the angel of the church in Leodicea right the amen the true and faithful witness the beginning of the creation of God says this I Know your deeds That you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot so Because you are lukewarm and Neither hot nor cold. I Will stick you out of my mouth Because you say I am rich and I have become wealthy and I have need of nothing and You do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may become rich and White garments that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and I Saved who anoint your eyes that you may see those whom I love I Reprove and discipline Be zealous therefore and repent Behold I stand at the door and knock if anyone here's my voice and opens the door I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me He who overcomes I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne as I also Burkain and sat down with my father on his throne He who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches The word of the Lord The gospel lesson this morning is taken from John chapter 2 verses 13 through 17 9 invite you to stand at this time for the gospel reading and
The Passover the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated and He made a scourge of cords and drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables and To those who were selling the doves he said take these things away Stop making my father's house a house of merchandise His disciples remember that it was written zeal for the house Will consume me The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
Let's pray together O father we come before you this morning and we would freely confess that Though we are regenerate people We are yet plagued with clouded vision with darkened hearts and By wills that still resist your will We pray at this time, O father that you would give to us clarity of vision by the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit That he would bring to light this text That the Lord Jesus Christ might be exalted and lifted up in our hearing today That the word preach would be faithful That the listening would be faithful and that what you have exhorted us to do for your word this day Might find a good acceptance in our lives Oh God, you are good to your people We ask for that goodness now By this the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon this worship service For it's in Jesus name that we pray Amen Please be seated Do you like other people to read your personal mail? I don't know if you're like me, but when a letter comes to my home or office, I rather prefer that it stays sealed until I open it Here you're just never sure what might be in that letter there could be something in there that would be a very personal and intimate There could be something in there which if you realized other people had seen you would just blanch I mean it would be Horrifying for you on some occasions as it would for me To know that other people routinely read your mail Now hopefully we all lead lives that are above reproach and had nothing that would be said in private correspondence would bring down in individual But there are still nonetheless personal and intimate things in letters which are best safeguarded so that only the The person who is intended to receive it Actually reads it to the book of Revelation is an open personal letter People all over The world have read this letter to the seven particular churches The words that the angel has John right are not uniformly gracious They are not words of commendation They are words very often of stern review Of of a knowledge and inside knowledge of a situation Which the people hearing and reading these words would realize only God could know this about us And yet this is what's called a circular letter This letter after it was written was hand delivered to the first church and The people in that church read it and they probably thought oh good I'm glad only we saw what the angel wrote to us and then they would go on and realize no This is a circular letter every one mentioned of these seven churches will likewise read this People will be making copies of this letter to retain here at this particular church so that we can refer to it in times future My children will read what the spirit has to say about the condition of my spiritual life in this church That would be a very very threatening thing to occur and in fact did occur And of all the churches Leo to see it probably was that church which had the most to To be anxious over for you see the other churches are received at least some commendation They were doing something good and The angel always pointed that out Not so with Leo to see it in this church. There was nothing Commendable it came as a very stern Rebuke to these people and yet and yet how like God at the end of that same stern Rebuking letter to hold out a through promise a Promise that in in some way surpasses anything that was promised to the previous six churches and letters you Find in this letter to Leia to see him the character of God In wrath he remembers mercy and In judgment he holds out yet the prospect for a future glory Now there are particular reasons for the spirit to write what he did write in this letter In fact, you're perhaps a customed already to some of the things that are familiar about the church in Leo to see it For example, we know that at Leo to see it they were largely without water The city itself was vulnerable It could only exist in times of peace because you see if an army a foreign army came to attack the city All they had to do was cut off the two main water supplies going into the city and Very shortly that city would have to surrender It was indefensible because of its lack of water the two water sources for Leo to see it came from six to ten miles away in either direction One source of hot water came from very hot boiling sulfur springs and It was carried through aqueduct to the city of Leia to see it Another water source came from Colossus and that water came from deep within the ground but it came up as very bubbling cold I see water It however had to go six or ten miles through an aqueduct as As both water supplies were delivered to Leia to see it the very deep I see mountain stream and cold water warmed up and it arrived at Leia to see it at air temperature The hot sulfur spring water lost its temperature and by the time it arrived in in Leia to see it too was only lukewarm air temperature Leia to see it was also a banking center. It was a place where commerce was flourishing in these days and there was an enormous wealth to this city in fact It was so wealthy that when an earthquake destroyed most of the cities in this region in the year 60 The Leia to see ends declined all assistance from Rome and any kind of federal help programs They said we have resources sufficient to rebuild the city on our own and in that pride of self-sufficiency Determined that they would do it with no help from anyone else There was also a school of medicine associated with this city Several miles outside the city proper was a a world-renowned school of medicine The most particular thing about it was they had developed an eyeball a Sav that relieved a lot of illnesses associated with eyes and That powder or Sav was exported around the then known world It is to this church that the angel writes the words Now it's interesting that when John begins the letter he records this The Amen the faithful and the true witness the beginning of the creation of God Says this to you the angel Heaps up words that all communicate trustworthiness truth integrity and faithfulness Because what follows is Is so severe that the people at Leia the sea would receive these words as a crushing blow upon them They would almost say these words are too stern to be true What is written here couldn't possibly come from God and so at the outset God prepares this people and he says These words come from the Amen From the ones who is eminently trustworthy From the ones who is himself the embodiment of truth There is nothing erroneous about what is to follow That is saying from my omniscience From my character and my commitment to truthfulness I know what is going on in your city and in your church and These words need to be taken with all the force power and authority that is communicated to them by the true and faithful witness The ones who is from beginning From the beginning writes these and So there is this heaping up this almost overkill of truthfulness at the beginning These people needed to be assisted in reading this letter It would bear such an enormous weight when it landed in their church The assessment you see is that God knows their deeds He doesn't say I know your theology. He says that to other churches But to five of the seven churches he says it is your actions which are so distressing to me I find your deeds absolutely abhorrent In fact, I find your deeds So out of character with the Christian thing That they cause me to be nauseous Some of the translations that you might be reading from in your Pew Bible or your personal Bible would say Therefore I will vomit you out of my mouth The the visceral reaction of God To the deeds of the Lano de Sienes Was that all he wanted to do was purge himself of these people and deeds. I will spit you out of my mouth He says You are an offensive lukewarm taste to me Oh How I wish that you were hot like those hot springs Oh, how I wish that you were even cold Like that cold water But you are neither And so I am nauseated by your deeds and it's one of the most strong Statements of God in the scriptures It communicates a revulsion It almost seems inconsistent with the character of God a God who loves his people and And yet on this occasion is prepared to say these words What does it mean by these deeds I think that Behind it would be an erroneous theology Good theology never produces this kind of complacency Good theology gets down into your genes Good good theology causes Literally a Constitutional change in you it produces something that manifests itself in harmony with itself The good deeds that Lano de Sienes should have been doing would have been the result of good theology I'm sure that their theology was equally suspect because of the bad fruit born by the bad tree But the angel doesn't comment on the theology rather only the deeds And we have to take God as Who he is the omniscient God who would have the wherewithal to know The God who would know the intentions the God who would know the The proud cold hearts that led to this kind of a lifestyle the kind of God who reads motives and Therefore knows even behind the deed What causes them to be so suspect or so complacent?
There's a word of warning for each of us The circular letter written to the leo de Sienes is part of that corpus of Scripture, which is profitable and Useful for teaching and for rebuke for all of us This morning as we read this I I implore you to begin even now taking inventory of your deeds If the spirit of God were to write a letter to you and you had the the privilege of not sharing it with everyone else What would the spirit write about your deeds? With the spirit rejoice magnifying What you do Saying this brings enormous glory to Jesus Christ in his church Or would he have words similar to what he writes here? The Holy Spirit is the searcher and the convictor of hearts And I would pray that as part of this morning's worship service That that same spirit What have the liberty to move in and among us this morning as that searcher of hearts? Who would be the convictor of sin where sin is found? And also the convictor of righteousness where it is found I Would implore you not to think of this as merely a historical letter The spirit is searching hearts today as he did then God is looking at deeds now as he did then this is contemporary and It would be who each one of us Today Beginning with this service and even as we contemplate the sharing of the Lord separate together to reflect upon our lives And to see not only how we would maybe do with this church, but with any of the churches that might have preached upon so far But you see God does not leave them at this point God who in his wrath can remember mercy goes on through verses 17 and 19 and he says this I have a firm definite prescribed course of action for you Leo de Sienes What you need to do is the following and then he he plays upon everything that he knows about this people In verse 17 he says You say I am rich and have become wealthy. I have need of nothing But you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I Advise you therefore here's the plan of action for the Leo de Sienes or for any of us who would find ourselves in the same predicament I advise you to buy from me gold All the gold that you have in your international banking resources, Leo de Sienes, cannot buy you what you need The gold that I have is a different kind of a gold and So he says I implore you to come to me for a true gold a gold that is refined by fire that you may become spiritually rich I also implore you to come and buy white garments from me See the Leo de Sienes were also very prosperous in part due to their Sheep there were apparently a kind of Sheep there that had a magnificent black wool to them the Leo de Sienes used this as part of their textile industry and all over this Ancient Near East they were known for the black Woolen robes that were made there Jesus is saying to them you think you are dressed in all of your finery, but in fact, you're naked in front of me And to be naked in front of God is a ya is a shameful thing And God says come to me and I will close you not with black fine garments But with a white robe the robe the righteousness itself of Jesus Christ That the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and You who think that you can do such marvelous things for the eyes You're blind You can't see anything You need to come to me and I will give you the comfort of an eye-sav the truly works That restores sight to those who are spiritually blind God goes on to say in this Don't you realize that those whom I love I Chasing I Discipline therefore Repent and the zealous It's a marvelous thing that God does not leave us in our sin He has provided a means of escape a way out of the predicament
What is it however to become zealous if the problem of the lay of the scenes was complacency? Feeling that they can do everything on their own they have no need of God and that their deeds are not in harmony with anything that they believe and have Have no ability to bring pleasure to God What is it to be zealous? Well, I think of Different models of zealous people Reminded of a story of Pete Rose who during his ball playing career was in the locker room after the second game of a double-header And a rookie was on the team and came in and took off his shoes and was just you know really Tired and achy and his feet hurt and just couldn't wait to be done and he was relieved I mean there was no pleasure at all that day in playing two ball games And he was grousing about how long and hot it was and two ball games, you know Pete Rose says hey, I wish we could play three I mean there's a measure of zeal in Pete Rose. He's not content to play just two ball games Let me teach you a lesson, rookie. Let's play three Well, there's a lot of people that we know who have zealous characters zealous characteristics But one example from church history that I thought that you might particularly enjoy comes from George Wittfield George Wittfield was a traveling evangelist a man who in the colonial days was part of What God used to produce the great awakening in New England? And it's the quality of Wittfield's life that stands out. It is so amazing He was a man who was captured by zeal Wittfield had an energy to drive and preach the gospel During much of his life he was plagued by sickness He often pulls himself out of bed just to preach and when he did pull himself out of bed to preach He says that he always found new energy standing behind the pulpit In one letter he wrote this fear not your weak body We are immortal till the work is done Christ's laborers must live by miracle if not I must not live at all for God only knows what I daily endure My continual vomiting has almost killed me and yet the pulpit is my cure So that my friends begin to pity me less and they begin to leave off that ungrateful caution Spare yourself It is said that Wittfield normally preached about nine times a week But nine times a week was not enough to satisfy him and that actually in many periods of his life He preached over sixteen times a week and it was through this preaching this zealous activity for God that he was able to overcome this plague that beset him his entire life On his tombstone it is said that in his ministry of 34 years he preached 18,000 times How was he able to sustain such activity? He possessed the quality that the scriptures call zeal What is zeal? Zeal is a burning desire to please God to do his will to advance his glory in all circumstances It is a quality that we are all called to possess Do you know people today who demonstrate this quality of zeal? I do I live with one My wife is a zealous person I really believe that she has at her foremost a burning desire to live in a way that is godly and righteous a focused manner that gives credit to the Lord Jesus and in particular aspects of her work I think she has demonstrated a zeal that is contagious and I appreciate that there is a transfer of energy from her to me and to other members of our family and to friends You undoubtedly know other people who are men and women of zeal I Would encourage you however that for all the people that you do know That there is one who is figured in the scripture who is Preeminently the man of zeal and that of course is the Lord Jesus Christ See the word zeal means to come to a boiling point It is a word that can be translated hot or boiling in other circumstances Jesus demonstrated a life that was lived to the boiling point The word also describes a life That is not a series of Interrupted heroic acts of zeal Some of us can become very zealous on occasion The word given to us in scripture is written in a verb tense that is a continuous action from now into the future It describes a person whose characteristic is zeal who is zealous today who was zealous yesterday and who will most certainly be zealous tomorrow And it's a marvelous quality for it's not just a heroic act on a given Sunday afternoon But rather something that has so transformed the life as to Manifest itself continuously In our scripture reading this morning, it said zeal for thy house will consume me And it certainly did in the life of Jesus At the last supper in Luke 22 Jesus said I have earnestly I Have zealously desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer Jesus had a consummate passion to do the will of the Father He had an overwhelming desire a spiritual Fervor in advancing the plan of salvation This enthusiastic devotion is commanded by you and of me It's commanded as a way of combating the complacency that creeps in Beloved we desperately need to cultivate that characteristic And finally this for those who manifest this zeal what is the promise of the text the text closes with these words The Christ offers for those who repent and become zealous in Leo de Sia in Orlando wherever He promises two things number one. He says I will come in and I will dine with you We will share a meal together That is a very important aspect of ancient near Eastern living To share a meal together suggests an intimacy He also goes on to say that those who overcome in this will sit with me in my throne where I sit with my father We have the eschatological hope that future prospect that if we repent in our zealous That we will not only have an intimacy of Table fellowship with the Lord Jesus but an intimacy of his presence in that we will share the place that he occupies in heaven These are marvelous Promises held out for those who are zealous There is no closer proximity to the Lord Jesus Christ then to dine at table with him There is no closer proximity then to sit on his throne Where he will judge men and nations this world Oh friends, I look forward to that. I trust that you do as well How appropriate it is this morning That this text Combines with the celebration of communion For you see this table set before us this morning is In addition a future hope It speaks to us of an eschatological promise It is we partake today We can have a foretaste of the same two promises that are held out to the lay of the sins I will come and I will suck with you. He says and surely he will in just a moment I Will come and you can enjoy the closest possible proximity to me an intimacy a personal fellowship beyond belief And certainly we believe that the Lord Jesus and that these elements help us to understand that and to communicate his real presence in this service at this time It is a marvelous thing that this text allows us to then be prepared to take the elements of the It serves as a warning to us To ascertain the nature of our faith To look at our deeds To see if we are spiritually right with God It provides an opportunity for us to repent of what has to be repented of And then it holds to promise that we can come at this time and meet with the Lord and have a foretaste of that which we will enjoy in heaven I thank God for the for the coincidence of this passage with the opportunity to celebrate with you the Lord's Supper How should you then approach this most holy meal? I encourage you to do so in the same manner in which the Lord Jesus approached this meal on the night in which he was betrayed When he said to his disciples I have earnestly desired with great zeal I have waited To enjoy this Supper with you together Let us come therefore in that same spirit
Let us go now before the Lord in a time of prayer Though holy and most gracious heavenly Father We are reminded by this text that you dwell in heaven Surrounded by angels and archangels And that from your throne you govern all of earth Judging men and nations and bringing review to us as we need it Father we confess that you know our hearts and our deeds Therefore we ask that you would forgive us miserable sinners We confess oh God That we have wandering affections We have a propensity to be complacent Oh God cause us to be steadfast men and women of zeal Come holy spirit come as fire and burn fiercely In and through us in the crucible of faith Father We ask that you would produce character worthy of the kingdom Zeal for good works and a tenderness for the least of our brothers and sisters Those who are broken and bruised by this world Those who are caught in sin and buffeted by Satan Remember mercy oh God We pray you this morning Be satisfied again with the atoning death of your son Jesus For Christ's sake For all that he endured for us Be gracious to us this morning we pray By that same grace we ask that you would comfort those in sickness and affliction We particularly remember the bookmins and the witlocks and their time of need Oh holy spirit Encourage them Show forth Yourself to them May they be people who are pleased to place their trust in the Lord Jesus And in each of the circumstances which they face this upcoming week May the name of Christ be exalted You know in this communion Sunday we pray for your whole church For the elect drawn from all ages Those for whom Christ so freely died We pray with thanksgiving for those who from their labors rest Who stood firm who finished the race Who left a legacy of faith And who now enjoyed your sweet fellowship We pray for those today around the world who continue to labor for your name's sake Father, we also ask on behalf of our children That they might be called regenerated and sanctified by you That they might one day join that great company of the elect Who will stand and sing the choruses of hallelujah to their father We ask all this by faith in Jesus name Amen