Message to the Churches - Conclusion

So far, in our series of sermons on the message to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, we've gone through five of the churches. We have two more to go through, Philadelphia and Laodicea. But before I go through those, there's two other issues within this context of this message to the churches that I want to touch upon and look at in terms of, one, a prophetic message, and two, a very personal message that's contained in these seven churches, or the messages of the seven churches. And then next time, we will go through the last two of those churches in Philadelphia and Laodicea. As I've said before, when we started this series and mentioned a number of times, you know, there are different ways to look at these, this message. One is that, of course, there were seven churches that existed in Asia Minor in 95 AD. Each of these churches was a succinct congregation separated by miles from the other ones. And because of lack of communications and just the situation they lived in there, they developed quite differently. Although in the modern world, even with our, you know, the things that we have in terms of telephones and television and, you know, the things that connect us together in some ways, internet, and the fact that we have cars and can come to church, we also know that congregations develop differently. And so the messages are very important to all of us. We also know that these are seven different kinds of attitudes. And these seven kinds of attitudes exist within people, sometimes within the same congregation. Last time when we went through the churches, the Thyatians, the churches of Thyatira and Sardis, I've had a lot of phone calls this week. It was interesting. People just talking about that. How, you know, they realize that a congregation can become totally engulfed in false doctrine. And how in that, when that happens, even there, a few people can hold on to the truth as he talks about Thyatira. And in Sardis, how you can have a church that just dies. People come together, but it's just a dead church. God's Spirit isn't even working, really, in that in that church. The other way of looking at these churches is also the concept of eras. And I think all three of these viewpoints that these represent congregations, that represent attitudes, and they represent eras, are probably is all there in this message. Now, when we look at church eras, then we say, okay, that means that each of these churches also represent a certain time in the history of the church. Now, this is a common viewpoint, by the way, among Sabbatarians, but it is also, and people are always shocked to hear this, this used to be a very common viewpoint among Protestants.

If you go back, and there are still Protestant churches today that teach it, but if you went back a hundred years, you would find that most conservative Protestant churches taught that there were seven church eras. Now, the most common way the Protestants broke that down was, they said, well, the Ephesian era, that represents the the apostolic age. That represents that first century, when you had John and Peter and Paul, and you had the church forming. And, but by the end of that period, they had begun to lose their first love. Smyrna, in their viewpoint, generally means the two centuries after that, when the church became small and persecuted and confused. Pergamos was the church that formed, that became solely paganized, that ended up with Constantine taking it over. Thyatira then was the church during the dark ages. In fact, in most Protestant viewpoint, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, the Catholic church was Thyatira. They claimed that that was the Thyatira church, that it still existed today, but it existed, you know, in its corrupt state. I don't think you'd find too many Protestants believe that today, but they did 100 years ago. Then you have Sardis. That was the Protestant Reformation. I've always thought it interesting that Protestants thought the Protestant Reformation was a dead church. I've always found that amazing, but that was part of the history that was in Protestantism for hundreds of years. Philadelphia was just the true church of all times. I mean, you would find the Philadelphia church all through history, and there would be a large section of it there at the end time. And then, of course, Laodicean, which they consider modern Christianity. Now, the reason Philadelphia is so important, of course, is that that church is promised to be protected from the Tribulation. That message to Philadelphia that we'll go through next time, that is actually used as one of the proofs of the rapture. If the church is to be protected, where is it supposed to go? Although it doesn't talk about the rapture in Revelation 3, they derive that from it. We'll be able to see what the Bible actually says about them. Now, the Seventh-day Adventists have a much a very interesting viewpoint of this, because they look at it and say, okay, what the Protestants believe is very similar, but what they say is that they are the Laodicean church.

And so they see themselves as the Laodicean church. And that's part of their teachings. I have a number of books at home on the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventists, and they openly claim to be the Laodicean church. Now, from what we have taught in our history, we have always taught that the Ephesian church was the Apostolic church, the Smyrna church, or that era, so to say, if these also represent eras, that was the time period in the second and third centuries when the church was persecuted, it was small, it was weak, and during that time period, Pergamos came along and that era began, and they became corrupted, just like the Pergamos church was corrupted in 95.

And then you have Thyatira. Thyatira began when the Roman Empire took over and created a false church and actually subjugated the true church. And then the true church went into the wilderness. And we've always taken Revelation 12, which makes perfect sense. Revelation 12, 1 through 6 talks about the church being formed, Christ comes, and then the woman has to go into the wilderness for 1260 days.

Now, later in that chapter, she's protected for three and a half years. So you have two different events, two totally different events. The 1260 days, and many times you look in prophecy, a day equals a year, prophetically. What you have is 1260 years in which the church was in the wilderness. Now, what we find is, is that once the Roman Empire took over the Catholic, took over the church that became the Catholic church, you have over 1200 years, almost 1300 years, where you can't hardly find the true teachings of God.

You find little bits and pieces of little groups, and they're usually lumped in with other people, and they're persecuted. And then what you have in the 15s and 1600s, you have churches starting to appear, especially in England, who teach very much what we do. And you have the whole revival of people saying we have to keep the Ten Commandments, we have to do away with idolatry, we have to keep the Sabbath. People began to look on, you know, that you don't go to heaven, or you don't go to hell when you die.

They began to rediscover the scripture. And we always looked at then, that was the beginning of the Sardis church. That they came out of that, there was a revival, and yet they never developed the way they were supposed to. This was our viewpoint for years in the worldwide church.

And then Philadelphia was the revival of the preaching of the Gospel in the 1930s, and then Laodicea will be the state of the church at the end time. Now, I believe it's absolutely impossible to go through and pick exact dates when one era starts and one begins.

You can't do that. But we can find, over the last 2,000 years, we can find a trend. The early church started very much like the Ephesian church. It very much morphed into what was the Smyrna church. It then came, the Pergamos church, it became corrupt. Then there was a church that barely existed, being subjugated by Catholicism for 1260 years. And so you have the Thyatira church, a church that's very corrupt, a church that has, that is barely surviving underneath this pressure and this oppression. Then you do have a revival. And yet, someplace in there that revival began to die.

Then you have another revival, which is the Philadelphia church. When that started, I don't know whether it was in the 1930s. It could have been clear back in the 18, early 1800s, because there was a huge revival in this country. People don't realize that there was a huge revival of Sabbath-keeping and certain things we believe that happened in the early 1800s.

So I don't know exactly when it started. That makes as much sense as any time. But we do know it started. And we do know that the Philadelphia era will then get smaller and smaller as the Laodicean attitude becomes the main attitude of the church. So prophetically, it is important that we understand all these attitudes. They all will be extant at the end time.

In fact, Thyatira is told God's coming to punish them. Sardis is coming, and he's saying, Christ is coming. If you don't repent, I will destroy you and blot out your names from the book of life. As we said last time, Sardis is a, that attitude is a salvation issue with God. The Philadelphia church, He will protect from the tribulation. Laodicea will be the prominent attitude. Because all those attitudes, if they represent eras, means that was the prominent attitude at that time. It wasn't the only attitude because they all exist together.

They all exist together. But there's always a prominent attitude. And somewhere as we get closer and closer to the end time, the Laodicean attitude will become the prominent attitude in the church. I believe that started a number of years ago, and I think it's continuing. So we have to understand what it is. Now, so we understand that there are these eras. We can supersede these, we can look at these as individual churches, individual attitudes, but as eras, that means all through church history there is a dominant attitude in the church.

All you have to do is read Matthew 24 and 25. If you remember, I gave a sermon on Matthew 24 and 25 about six or eight months ago and said, this is the dominant attitude at the church at the end time because Christ prophesies it will be. That's the Laodicean attitude. And so we need to know what it means. But we also need to know, make sure we're not Sardis. We also need to make sure we're not Thyatira, not compromising with the world. We also need to make sure we're not Ephesus, where we have the right doctrines, but we've lost our love. We have to make sure we're not any of those, except the one that God says is the one that is right with him. And out of all those churches, there's only two, he says, are right with him. But there is another message through here that I want to touch on today. And I'm going to cover a lot of ground today. So I'm going to ask you to write some things down and do this as your personal study. Because I think this is very, very important as we come up to the Passover season. There is a singular message to every one of the churches. Every one of them receives one singular message. Let's go to Revelation 2.7. Revelation 2.7. Because if there's one thing said to every church, it must be real important. It must be real important. Revelation 2.7. Talking to Ephesus, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Verse 11, churches Smyrna, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. To Pergamos, verse 17, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat and I will give him a white stone and on that stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it. Notice that each of these churches is still offered a reward. Even the worst of them is offered a reward. If they overcome, they will be saved. Chapter 2, verse 26, Thyatira, the church is absolutely corrupt.

And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over all the nations.

Chapter 3, verse 5, the message to Sardis, he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. To Philadelphia, in verse 12, he who overcomes I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go out no more and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down of heaven for my God, and I will write on him my new name. And then verse 21, to the church at Laodicea, to him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. So, overcoming is a real important message here. All seven of these churches get the same message, you must overcome. But then, here this message to Laodicea, we get another understanding of what he's talking about. Because Christ says, just as I overcame, you must overcome.

So, we need to know what he means by that. He overcame. And we are expected. The message to all seven churches is the same. You must overcome. And this reward is given to you. Whether it's Philadelphia, Laodicea, Sardis, Thyatira, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, all of them are told the same thing in the end. You overcome, and you receive a reward.

All of us, and as we approach the Passover season, we're reminded. You know what's very unfortunate, brethren? And as we go through the sermons I'm going to be giving before the Passover on the ministry of reconciliation, we have a serious issue that we come to the Passover every year recognizing Jesus Christ as our Savior. And in doing so, there's a great connection we have with God. And there's a great love and mercy we tend to show each other. And it's how long after the Passover before we give that up. And then the rest of the year we live outside the framework of if God doesn't send his Son and die for us, if he's not resurrected for us, if there is no forgiveness offered by God, then our lives are meaningless. Absolutely meaningless!

And every Passover we come in on that and we understand that, and we are motivated by it. And yet it's usually not very long after Passover. You know, it's amazing that during the few weeks before Passover there's all these trials, but there's usually a few-week period where marriage problems tend to disappear, strife between brethren tends to disappear. There's all kinds of problems that tend to disappear for a few weeks. And then within a few weeks after Passover it starts off all over again. And then we move on. And as we move on from that point, we go back to our old habits and our old sins.

To overcome always begins with that we are slaves, or were slaves, and that God brought us out of our spiritual Egypt. That He has offered us salvation. A salvation that you and I were not worthy of, but He offered it to us. Now we have our part to play. You know, we won't go there today, but Hebrews talks about what happens if you overcome the world and then you're overcome again by the world. And there's no way to receive repentance after that. Because you just become part of the world again. How do we overcome? How are we to overcome? John 6 33. Here, let's look at a couple of starting points. John 6 33.

So as we prepare for the Passover, we start thinking about these things. We start praying about these things. We start considering what it means to have a Passover. What it means to be de-leavened. As we take that leavening out, if we just take leavening out and we don't understand what it means, it's just a ritual. That's all it is. If we partake of that wine and that bread, and we truly don't grasp what it means, we're just going through a ritual. John 6 33.

This isn't where I wanted. Where did I want to go?

Well, let's go to Romans 8. Romans chapter 8.

What happens there in John, and I'm not going to just take time to find the verse. There's a verse there in John 6 where he says, I have overcome the world. He's with his disciples on the night of his Passover, and he tells them, I have overcome the world. How did he overcome the world? How did Jesus Christ overcome the world? He overcame the world by fighting Satan, by living a sinless life, and then taking the sins of everyone of us upon himself, and then was died and resurrected so he could do the work of God in the church, and prepare for the world. And then he was taken to the church, and then he was taken in the church, and prepared for his second coming. And he tells him, I've overcome the world. I'm about to just crush the ruler of this world. 1633. There you go. Let's go there. Let's go back. Hold your place there, because I really want to read this. John 1633. Type of graphical error.

Jesus says to his disciples, These things I have spoken to you. Now this is that night before he died, that in me you may have peace. He says, I'm telling you this so you can have peace even living in a world that's going to be constantly filled with violence, and anger, and hatred. That's the world you and I live in. That's the world they lived in. That you may have peace. In the world I will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I'm sorry, in the world you will have tribulation. We're told that. In this world you're going to have tribulation. I'm going to have tribulation. But we are to be of good cheer. We're to be positive, even in that tribulation. Why? Because Jesus said, I have overcome the world. This is how God is fulfilling his plan of salvation. When we get to Laodicea, you're going to find that part of the problem in the Laodicean Church is not understanding what God was doing through Christ, and so they didn't understand the plan of salvation.

He says here, he has overcome the world. Now let's go to Romans 8. Because Romans 8 only makes sense in that context. Romans 8.34. Romans 8.34. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore has also arisen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Now, we just heard about intercessory prayer. You and I go to the Father, directly to the Father. When you and I pray, we don't need saints, we don't need angels, we don't need another human being, the interceding. We go directly to God because our intercessor is at his right hand. Our intercessor is right there saying, apply my sacrifice to this child. And see, we forget that. We forget why we have a right to go there.

And we take it for granted as this almost right was just inherent. Of course, I have a right to go to God. We have a right to go to God only because the penalty for our sins was paid for us. Our holy God doesn't simply accept us the way we are. That's a false Protestant concept.

He accepts us because we have accepted the blood of Jesus Christ and we have repented and now we are being changed into his children.

He says, who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or prayer or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Now notice verse 37, yet in all these things, what's he talking about? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword. That's not a very good list. So I'm a victim here. I'm a victim of tribulation. I'm a victim of distress. I'm a victim of persecution. I'm a victim of famine. I'm a victim of nakedness. I'm a victim of sword. That's how we respond if we don't understand what God's actually doing. In verse 37, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors. We overcome. It's more than overcoming. We conquer through him who loved us. We're to conquer what's happening in our lives. And you and I can't do that. See, we think overcoming means enduring and it does not. It means conquering. We think that overcoming means struggling with our sins with the realization we'll probably never really overcome it. No, it doesn't. Overcoming means overcoming. No, it doesn't happen overnight. I'm not saying overnight. Overcoming doesn't mean overnight. But overcoming literally means overcoming. It means that sin is removed from us from our submission to God's Spirit, our willingness to participate and put forth our effort in what he is doing.

And so we are more than conquerors. Interesting statement from Paul. Overcoming is more. Jesus Christ just didn't endure. He conquered Satan. He conquered the world. And he has called you to conquer Satan and to conquer the world with his help. I can't do that on our own. This is the message to the seven churches. You are to overcome! And Christ says at the end there to Laodicea, overcome as I overcame the world. He says, I've shown you how to do it and you can only do it through the help of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit that they give to us that power, that love that they give to us.

You aren't just to hang around till Christ returns. That's not what this is all about. That's not what this is all about. It isn't just knowing facts. Christianity is more than knowing scriptures. We have to know scripture or we can't be Christians, but it's more than that. As I said when I went through the Agape sermons, you can't be a Christian without right doctrine, but true Christianity is more than right doctrine. There is a change of who we are that must take place at the very core of who we are.

And as the church gets closer to the end time, that will happen less and less and less. The change of the core of who we are will be happening less in the church, and we will show that next week as we become more and more like the world and think more and more like the world. I think all of us have probably asked ourselves at one time or another, especially around Passover time, why am I not overcoming more? Why do it seems that the problems I have now are the same problems I had last year and the same problems I had the year before and the same problems I had the year before? Why am I still in slavery to sin? Why do I still have such anger? Why do I still have such hatred? Why do I still have such envy? Why do I still have such greed? Why do I still have such lust? And, you know, we can just fill in the bank.

What is it? Why do I have that? Why can't I overcome it? Maybe you cried out to God. Maybe you begged God to help you overcome, and yet you just can't seem to break through. Well, I want to look at some things that keep us from overcoming.

And like I said, I'm covering a lot of ground here. I'm going to give lots of points. I want you to study these points. I really have about two or three sermons here I'm giving today. Because I want to just give an overview of He who overcomes. Seven places, seven churches, He who overcomes. And it all goes back to, as I overcame. Christ overcame by living a sinless life, following the Father, following the commandments. But it's more than that. He was God in the flesh. He's what we're supposed to become in terms of our character. We are supposed to become Christ-like. You know, one thing about it, when you go through the life of Christ, it was never fair. It was never fair for Christ. It was never just for Christ, ever.

His own brothers and sisters. We're going through the book of James up in in Kerrville, a series of Bible studies. In fact, I mean, if someone would like to start some in-home Bible studies here, we can start some in-home Bible studies and go through the book of James, because it's important. But you know, you just look at what, well, I don't want to get off too much here and go down into the book of James. I just say it was never fair for Jesus Christ.

Never. We spend our whole lives thinking this must be fair. There must be total justice. He never experienced it. Oh, looking at the book of James, I just bring out this point. I we went through James, of course, that's the half-brother of Jesus Christ. And when you see the mention of James in the Gospels, James and the brothers and sisters, half-brothers and sisters of Jesus, never believed he was the Messiah until he died and was resurrected. In fact, they mocked him. They made fun of him.

And so even his own family, except for Mary and Joseph, made fun of him.

It was never fair. And yet he treated life totally different than what we do. We keep looking for fairness. He kept looking for a right relationship with his father. Those are two different viewpoints of life.

So why don't we overcome? Well, once we have to go back to, okay, it goes back to accepting and understanding we were sinners. We were forgiven. We were given a privilege.

And that power is given to us through God's Spirit to overcome. He tells us we are more than conquerors. So we have to ask ourselves, what is it that God can't conquer? There's lots of things in my life I have not conquered. But it is not because of God. I can tell you that. I've learned that much. Anything in my life I have not conquered. It is not because of God. It is because I have not allowed God to do it. That's why. I have not submitted. I have not obeyed. I've not allowed God to do it.

What is it in you that God can't conquer? What is it in you that God can't overcome? What limitations are you willing to say right now? God can't do this in me because God can't do it.

Remember, overcoming doesn't mean overnight. But overcoming is overcoming.

One reason why or a thing that keeps us from overcoming is we don't see the need to overcome or don't understand that we are recalled to a life of overcoming.

We just don't get it. We don't understand that you and I weren't called to be the same person we've been.

And we understand that at baptism. But see, many of us have been doing this, what, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years? You're not the same person you were when you were baptized. So I'm not asking you that question. I'm asking you were the same person you were 10 years ago or 5 years ago. Because if we answer yes to that, then what happened is in our spiritual growth, we came to a point where we stopped. At what point have we stopped? Because we are called to a life of overcoming. And there is nothing pleasant about being shown your sins. There's nothing pleasant about going to God on a regular basis and saying, Father, help me to overcome. Show me where I need something I need to change in mercy. And then show me how I must do it. There's nothing pleasant about that. And yet it is what we are to be doing every day. You and I were called to a life of overcoming. Overcoming Satan, overcoming the world, overcoming our own human nature. And we are all caught up in so many other things that that is not what we are doing.

It's not easy. It takes time. And once you get one thing conquered, guess what God will do? He will show you something else that needs conquered.

But that's what it's all about.

This is what this life is supposed to be.

A second reason we don't overcome is, in all honesty, we're just not close enough to God.

We talk about daily prayer. We talk about daily fasting. Or not daily fasting, but regular fasting. We talk about daily Bible study. But I will tell you, I have seen more problems in the Church of God. Because as individuals we're not involved in daily prayer. We're not involved in daily Bible study. And we're not fasting regularly.

We don't see a need for it.

You're in a war between two natures. God's nature and your human nature. And you either feed one or you feed the other. One's either winning or one's losing. I mean, they coexist, but they are at war.

We either feed the spiritual nature or we feed the human nature. The corrupt human nature. That's the two choices. There aren't any other choices here. We either feed the one or we feed the other. And when you and I are caught up in all those things we're talking about, greed, lust, envy. When we're caught up in anger and hatred. When we're caught up in all the things that beset us. That we need to be looking at our lives as we approach the Passover. When you and I are caught up with compromising, cheating a little bit, slander, gossip. You know, we can just name 50 things and we get caught up in all the time. When we're doing those things, it's because we are feeding the corrupt human nature. You're feeding the lion. And then wonder why it's biting you when you're in the cage feeding it.

We must feed the spiritual nature. And you are fed that by our personal, your personal relationship with God. And I had someone remind me this the other day. They said they'd come to me about some personal problems these people were having. I thought, oh yeah, I forgot you came to me. How'd that work out? And they said, just fine. We thought you were going to give us all these instructions. And you said, well, before I can give you instructions, you have to go back and pray about this situation. And here's some scriptures to read and you have to fast about it. I said, yeah, you never came back. They said, yeah, once we did that, we didn't have to.

They didn't have to. God healed them. When we get into reconciliation, you're going to see one of the big problems we have as human beings is we wait for other people to heal us. We expect other people to heal us. We want other people to heal us, especially when we've been hurt and that's normal. But the bottom line is the real healing of life comes from God. It comes from God. I didn't even have to do anything else. Once they did that, God helped them solve their problems and they didn't even need me anymore. In fact, all of you get right with God and I'll be out of a job. That's okay. We don't overcome because we're not feeding the spiritual nature.

So we're filled with arrogance and vanity.

We argue over minute issues in the Bible. When the whole purpose of this is to become Christ-like, that's it! That's the whole purpose. It is to worship God, our Father, be in a relationship with Him and become like His son. That's why we do this. That's why you and I are here today. That's why we keep the Sabbath. That's why it's holy. It's a holy day and we're supposed to be holy people. Why? Because we come here to worship God, to learn about God and become Christ-like, and in doing so to become His family. If we can't be His family as brethren, then we're not being Christ-like. If we can't be the family of God as His people, then we have a problem with God and with being Christ-like. This is all part of this concept of overcoming.

The third reason we don't overcome is because we find excuses and justifications for our sins. You know, I was thinking about this the other day, and I was reading something and it dawned on me. There's an analogy that I use that you'll find marriage counselors use a lot, and I've used a lot in doing marriage counseling. I've used it from the pulpit, where two people you have to understand emotionally were like penny jars. You know, if you heard me use that and you take the pennies out, and if you take enough pennies out, the person is hurt, you got to put more pennies in to emotionally build them up. And that's true, but that's only true, I've started to realize, really, when a relationship has reached a certain amount of healthiness. You know why I say that?

Because if you spend your whole life waiting for everybody else to put pennies in your jar, you see your whole life as a victim. Well, my problem is, my parents treated me this way, my problem was the school I went to, my problem is that I grew up in a bad area of the country, my problem is that this person said something to me, that my problem is that my husband or wife did this, my problem is that this minister did this to me, my problem is that—and just fill in the blank— and every time we say that, what we're saying is, I will not take responsibility and own up for who I am before God. Because in the end, all of us are corrupt human beings filled with sin that must be forgiven and changed. But you know, we don't have to do that when we say, yeah, but I'm only this way because my dad was this way. Right? Yeah, I know I hit my wife, but that's because my dad hit my mother, and it's just what I learned, and just give me some time to overcome it. I mean, God understands. No, he doesn't. What God says is, that's so terrible. You're so terrible. I'm so terrible that he had to kill his son to give us the very privilege to come before him. We are, we were—not now, but we were an abomination to God. And while we were yet sinners, he killed his son—and that's what it says in Isaiah 63. Part of that was read in the sermon. It says he killed him. He killed him.

Because you know the Roman soldiers killed him. No, God killed his son. He sacrificed his son. Why? Because it was the only way to get us from eternal death into life. Have we forgotten that?

If we understand that, I tell you what, you treat other people differently, because you step back from the rights that we think we have. We begin to see other people as people who need mercy just as much as we do.

Something changes. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I do. Just a little bit, because I'm a human being, too. I use the same arguments, and I find out they're just hollow before God. They're hollow before God. So we justify our sins. We don't confess our sins. And since we don't confess our sins, we are still in our sins. And we understand we can't figure out why we have none of the fruits of God's Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, mercy, gentleness, faith, goodness. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand those things. But wait a minute, wait a minute, let's talk. Wait, no, no, no. That's what God says He wants to produce in our lives. Why don't we have those things? And sometimes it's because we're justifying our own attitudes. We're justifying our own sins. Like I said, we'll talk more about that in reconciliation.

Sometimes one of the reasons we don't overcome is we're still trying to do it on our own. We're not crying out to God to give us what we do not have. We're not willing to admit before God, I do not have the ability to overcome this sin. I do not have the ability to stop smoking on my own. I do not have the ability to stop hating this person. I do not have the ability to stop whatever.

A fifth reason is we don't overcome because we think God wants us to pay for our sins instead of repent. The only way you can pay God for your sins is to die forever. There is no other way to do it. So if you want to repay God for your sins, you're going to have to go die forever. You have to go to the lake of fire. There is no other way out of it. There isn't. So, guys, as I already paid the penalty for that, now He wants us to repent and change and not and grow out of sin. Become Christ-like. Become His children. That's what He wants. A sixth reason why we don't overcome is in 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. We don't really grasp what He's offering us, and we don't grasp the price of failure here. Our eternal lives are at stake. Our eternal lives are at stake. And what God is offering us is amazing. 1 John chapter 3 verse 1. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are the children of God. Do you realize what that I just read there? John said? When God looks at you right now, He sees you already as His child. That's the kind of affection, desire for your success that He has. That's the kind of desire He has for you to overcome. That's why He wants you to be a conqueror. He wants you to overcome. He wants you to grow. He wants your marriage to work. He wants you to stop drinking and abusing alcohol. He will give you the power to do that. He'll give me the power to do that.

He says, Beloved, now we are children of God. Now we are children of God. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Do you understand what's being offered to us? To become spirit children of God forever. To see God as He is. To go before that incredible throne of God and bow down before Him and Jesus Christ at His right hand and all the angels and all that power and all that glory and all that perfectness. And to go there, not as a sinner, but to have been cleaned up and changed and created into His child forever. That is what is offered to us. That's the conquering. Christ overcame the world and then took His place at the right hand of God. You and I are to overcome the world with His help so that we go and bow ourselves before God in the future and see Him as He is. That is what is being offered to us. We don't overcome because we don't believe that. Or that's just not that important to us. I mean, let's get down to the reality of it. We don't think about it, or we don't care. We get up to many other problems to think about. And so we don't overcome. And then another way, a last way that we don't overcome is because it's easier to stay the way we are. You know, Charles Dickens wrote a story about a man who was in prison all his life. For many, many, many long years. And when he came out of prison, he walked out of that dark, damp, bun-filled, stinking hole, walked out into the bright sunlight, looked around, looked at the expanse of the world before him, instead of seeing the possibilities, said, I can't take this. Turn around and ask them to put him back in jail. You know, I've met people who are, and they have a term for it. They've been in prison so long they're institutionalized. They get out, they're out for a little time, and I've actually known of men who have committed a crime just to go back. Because that's the only world that makes sense to them anymore. They've become institutionalized. You and I have become so institutionalized by the world we think like them, we act like them, and we're part of the prison. Christ came to free us from the prison. Isn't that the message of the days of univin' bread, to free us from our slavery? So we're freed from that, but we're just like the Israelites, but boy were those onions good. I prefer slavery with its little perks than the vast future that God has given to us with its responsibilities and its difficulties.

So we prefer slavery with its perks. Then we prefer the kingdom of God because of its responsibilities and difficulties. And it's just easier to not overcome.

Now, how can we be better, more effective, overcovers? Well, this can take three sermons, so I'm going to very quickly go through some steps you and I can take. First of all, 1 Peter chapter 1.

We had better get back to something very basic in our lives, in our lives, if we wish to endure and conquer the trials that are ahead.

We'd better do it, or we will not endure or overcome the trials that are ahead.

1 Peter 1.13. Therefore gird up the loins of your mind. He says, take and clothe your mind, prepare your mind, be ready in mind, and be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Find comfort in knowing that Christ is coming back and you're being prepared for that, and that this life has meaning every day in worshiping God, in serving God, and in being prepared for that. Rest on that. Find your peace in that. As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lust as in your ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy for I am holy, whole other sermon there, just in that verse. We are to become holy just like God is holy, because we're obedient children, because of that relationship. You are now the children of God, in relationship. And if you call on the Father without partiality, judges according to each one's works, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. In other words, we better be very serious about this Christianity. The majority of the world hasn't been called today. We have. The majority of the world is not being judged eternally yet. We are.

Knowing that you were not redeemed. Now, what did he take us back to? You were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition of your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. First thing, becoming a more effective overcomer is consider the price God paid for you and the desire he must have for you to pay that price. Consider the price Jesus Christ paid for you and the desire he must have for you to pay that price. That has to be a motivation for us. God's goodness draws us to repentance. This must be a motivation for us if we are to actually overcome and not fade into a self-righteous complacency. The price paid for us was enormous because God wanted us, and therefore we must respond to that. That's the Passover. That's what this season coming up on is all about.

Secondly, take immediate action. I mean today. I mean now. I mean when you go home. I mean what you discuss after services today. Take immediate action to confess before God and draw close to Him. I hope all of you talk about this sermon today. You'll talk about it all week long. I hope you go home and you get on your knees before God and you say, I realize the price that was paid. I forget that throughout the year, but I'm reminded at the Passover. And I wish to come confess my sins to you. We don't confess our sins to a person. That's why we don't need a priest. That's why we don't need an intercessor, except Jesus Christ. But we are to confess our sins. You know, just saying, God forgive me for my sins today. I know I did some bad stuff. And you know, what I really want to talk to you about is I would like a new car. We have to go before God. And we have to say, today I have sinned because I forgot somehow. Somewhere in my weakness, I forgot the price you paid.

We're in danger of our Christianity morphing into something very dangerous here in the churches of God. I don't care whether it's united or any other. All of them are in the same boat right now. We're in a great danger of this turning into something wrong. We have to go back to this. We have to go back to the meaning of the Holy Days. And we have to go back to a humility before God that if we do not obtain, He will not be there for you or for me in the trials that are to come. It's that simple.

1 John 1 John chapter 1 I do have to leave after services to go up to Austin. I will try to be around some more over the next couple months. But today I do have to leave. I had to leave last week, too. But I'm hoping over the next few months to be able to spend some time around here more after services. April 9 we will have an afternoon service and I'll just be here. Of course, in two weeks I'll be here all day. But I want to discuss this stuff. I want to talk about these things. I'm going to go back to what Christianity meant to all of us in the past, not what it's becoming in our culture. What it meant to the first century church. What it meant to you and I in the 60s and the 70s. 1 John 1 verse 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, see, we stop there. We don't talk about confessing sins much. That's sort of a Catholic idea, right? No, the Catholic idea is you have to go to a human confessor. That's what's wrong. You and I must be self-aware of our sins, of our compromises. We must become aware of those things. I guarantee you, you're all aware of each other's sins. I doubt if there's one person here I couldn't sit down with to say, hey, tell me about some of the sins of the congregation. You could tell me lots of them. But yes, go say, don't go confess your other sins, although intercessor repairs is interesting. We actually are supposed to go at times and confess somebody else's sins. We're supposed to beg for other people's repentance. I know I've spent a lot of time in the last few months begging for the repentance for people, for the problems in the church today. Begging for other people's repentance. I do it constantly. Almost a day doesn't go by that I'm not begging for somebody's repentance. I have to admit, I have not done that much in my life. I'm learning. I'm learning.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do we believe that? Do you believe you can be clean? Because you can be. Today. You can leave this service and go home and get on your knees and ask God to clean you and He can clean you. And then the hard part starts because He uses a wire brush.

Because it's just seeped into it. It's in our pores. It's like under your fingernails. You really want to be clean? Understand what you're asking for. Go confess your sins and ask God to clean you and then get prepared for the scrubbing you're going to go through. But if you want to overcome the world, if you want to be an overcomer the way Revelation 2 and 3, the message is, you have to do it and I have to do it.

It's a wondrous thing to be scrubbed down by God.

A third point is that we must stop believing that God will love us only when we are perfect.

If God loves us only when we're perfect, we're all doomed.

Right? We're all doomed. Because none of us are perfect. And in any given moment, any one of us is acting so unconverted that everybody else is saying, how can that person be converted? Right?

A fourth point, and this is a whole sermon in itself, we have to be committed entirely to the conversion process. You'll see that the seven points I gave you on why we don't overcome and the seven points of how to be overcomers actually work together. So if you're writing these down, you can compare these two lists and you can see that what we have is problem solutions. Problem solution. I mean, what was the last time you just picked up the booklet Transforming Your Life that Roger Foster wrote? Go pick that up and read every scripture that's in there. Pick that booklet up, but just don't read the booklet. All literature is a way to bring people to the Bible so God can talk to them. Read the scriptures. But see, you and I take that for granted. You and I take so much for granted that we're in danger of losing what God has given us.

A fifth point is we have to stop trying to find excuses and justification for our own sins and our own character falls.

We must be willing to take ownership of whatever we've done wrong in any situation. Even the private sins nobody else knows. We have to take ownership of those and stop justifying them and we have to take them to God. God doesn't accept if you only knew, blankety-blankety-blank, fill-in-blank, then you would understand my behavior. He understands your behavior. But He didn't call you to justify or to stay a slave to some past problem. He called you to conquer it. He called you to overcome. He said, just as I overcame, you overcome. A sixth point is another sermon in itself again. We must begin to recognize and get control of wrong habits. You and I do things habitually so much we don't even know we're doing it wrong. And this is especially true the way we think. Especially true the way we think. Especially true the way we think. And then a seventh point.

There's an old saying, I know I've heard this in sermonettes, a couple of sermonettes given over the last couple years here, so enact and you reap a habit, so a habit and you reap character, so character and you reap a destiny. And that's true. Actions simply become habits. Thoughts become habits. And we think it's true because why? Because you do it every day. That doesn't mean it's true. It just means you do it every day. It doesn't mean it's good. It's just you do it every day. I do it every day.

The last point is we must flee sin, not try to see how close we can get to it without really sinning. You know what I mean? Okay, so what kind of movie can I watch before it really is sin?

That's a tough one, isn't it, when you start asking yourself that?

What can I do to get up where I'm just on the border of being dishonest? What can I do to I'm just getting up on the border? I'm not breaking the Sabbath. It's sort of almost like sort of breaking the Sabbath, but not really.

Honor your mother and your father. Do not covet. Think of all the things we're told. And I will tell you this, you know, I do something interesting. Just take, I've had a couple people, thank someone here and someone in another congregation, said that they've done this, and so I did it and it was amazing. Just take the book of Matthew, if you have a red letter edition, and just read all the words in red. And then take Mark, Luke, and John and just read all the red letters. And write down every command of Jesus Christ you're not keeping. And what you're going to find is we're not very good commandment keepers. We're just not. Somehow we've relegated the teachings of Jesus Christ to secondary issues, and not even realized we did it. I'm serious. Take those Gospels, read all the red letters, and write down every commandment from Jesus Christ you're not doing. This is why, by the way, some Protestant churches say that everything said by Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. Even his teachings were nailed to the cross because nobody can live by those. We're called to conquer. We're called to overcome. That's the message to the seven churches. When you go through those, you will find there's commandment after commandment after commandment that many of us, every one of us, will find commandments we're not keeping. We're not doing. It'll be easy to say, well, I know people who don't do that one. Well, I know somebody who doesn't do that one. No. Pray about it. Go through those Gospels and ask God to show you what you're not doing. And it will be sobering if you actually pray that and you actually do it.

But we have to. We're approaching the Passover season. We are to be reconciled to God through Christ. We need to understand what that means. Overcoming is one of the singular messages given to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. So next time, we will go through the last of the two churches. We will go through the messages given to the church in Philadelphia and the church in Laodicea.