Rev 2:1-4
The Church Age
This is the third message as we continue to work through the book of
Revelation. While I realize some may be anxious for me to move into
the chapters that deal with the tribulation, I feel it is important
for us to see the truths revealed in the first three chapters.
Remembering that John \\#Rev 1:19\\ was told to write what he had
seen, what was, and what will be, and understanding that chapters 2
through 3 are dealing with that which is; we should realize that we
are studying the things which are happening right now. in other
words, we are studying the prophecies that are being fulfilled in our
lives.
I spoke last week on what I believe to be one of the prophecies
being fulfilled in our life, Christ judging the church as seen
by the location of the Judge in chapter one, among the candlesticks.
We see that judgment detailed more clearly by looking at the seven
churches. The seven churches give us several
1. They are literally seven church of John’s day, and John
literally wrote what God told him to and sent it to them.
2. These seven churches are a sampling of all churches. While
it may not be a perfect match, you could take any church in
the world and find a comparison in one of these seven
churches.
3. They represent the stages of the church age. God used these
seven churches to prophecy the cycles that the body of
Christ would go through from its inception to its
conclusion. It is that prophetical line that I want to
speak to you about this morning.
This morning, let’s look at prophecy of the church age.
I. \\#2:4\\ The first prophecy is found in the church of Ephesus
A. The church would lose their first love for Christ.
1. Personally, I believe this is the first and greatest
danger for all Christians and churches in all ages.
2. All of the other evils which will come onto and into the
church are made possible only because our love for Him
waxes cold.
3. Believers confuse being busy for Jesus with being in love
for Jesus.
a. As Jesus indicated in \\#Rev 2:2,5\\, good works
without love for Christ are nothing!
b. That is what Paul clearly stated:
1Cor 13:2 And though I have the gift of
prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and
all knowledge; and though I have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains, and have
not charity, I am nothing.
B. What must we do?
1. \\#Rev 2:5\\ Remember what we had! Remember what He has
done. Remember how we felt.
2. Go back to loving Him supremely again
3. Let us not coast on the fumes of yesterday’s love!
4. I mentioned this prophecy last week so let us move on.
II. \\#2:9-10\\ The second prophecy is found in the church of Smyrna.
A. The church would be persecuted.
1. That is a not a new prophecy but given many times by
Jesus.
Lu 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you,
and when they shall separate you from their
company, and shall reproach you, and cast out
your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
Lu 21:12 But before all these, they shall lay
their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering
you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being
brought before kings and rulers for my name’s
sake.
2. But it was Paul who perhaps put persecution in its proper
perspective.
2Ti 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
3. And so persecution is to be the norm for the Christians.
4. \\#Rev 2:10\\ The prophecy is that the church would
experience persecution 10 days.
a. History shows that there were 10 Roman emperors who
persecuted the Christians with a great determination.
b. There were others who persecuted the Christians but
those 10 did it with a vengeance.
c. It is likely that the 10 days represent those
emperors.
B. \\#2:10\\ They will need courage.
1. Notice there was no key given to stop the persecution.
2. There are some things we simply must go through.
3. Paul and Barnabas returned to some of the cities they
had gone through…
Acts 14:22 Confirming the souls of the
disciples, and exhorting them to continue in
the faith, and that we must through much
tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
4. And so it is in our lives, we need courage to face
whatever may come our way.
III. \\#2:14-15\\ The third prophecy is found in the church Pergamos.
A. The church would allow those who hold false doctrine within.
1. Those who hold the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of
the Nicolaitians.
2. Some want to know what those false doctrines were.
3. While it is an interesting study, it is not really
necessary to the point.
4. The point was God did not want false doctrine in the
church.
a. Some where along the line, many inside the church
have gotten the notion that the church is supposed
to be tolerant, open-minded, wcwn open to reason and
to change.
b. That is a lie of the devil.
c. The church is and always has been the most exclusive
club on the planet.
d. The church was created by God to do His work and is
only for the saved, baptized, and dedicated to God.
e. We are not a secret organization and do not want to be
so anyone is welcome to come for a visit; but if you
want to be apart of this body, you must surrender to
the Lord God Almighty and if you will not, you cannot
belong to the church.
B. \\#Rev 2:16\\ Repent.
1. Jesus only gave them one word to remedy their situation.
2. I that that to mean that they were to do what was
necessary to keep the church pure in doctrine.
3. So are we.
a. The church is not a doctrinal smorgasbord.
b. It is not a place to sample various viewpoints.
c. The church is charged to preach the Word of God and to
interpret it by the Holy Ghost.
(1) If the teaching becomes corrupt, the church
becomes corrupt.
(2) If the teaching becomes weak, the church becomes
weak.
(3) If the teaching stops, the church ceases to be
the church.
d. The preaching of the Word of God is not just something
we do. It is an essential of what we do. It is the
thing we do that motivates, convicts, and guides the
church.
e. Do not allow yourself to drift and to be busied during
the preaching and do not allow the ambers of the
pulpit to die.
IV. \\#2:20\\ The fourth prophecy is found in the church of Thyatira.
A. The church would allow false leaders within.
1. Jezebel was an ungodly woman who became queen over Israel.
2. She may not have been the king but she was very high in
influence and had power over the people.
3. Once you begin to allow false teachers and their false
doctrine into the church, it is only a matter of time
until they take over the leadership positions.
4. It might surprise you to find out that it did not take
the church very long to go through these first four
stages.
a. I know that I think differently than other people but
I would say in the first 300 years of church history,
the church had burned through the first three
prophecies.
b. Within another few generations or so, the church was
being lead totally by false leaders.
c. I am deliberately trying not to bore you with too
much history but that began a time period that lasted
for well over 1,000 years.
d. Imagine that, for more than 1,000 years, the entity
called the church was being directed by one Jezebel
after another, feeding those who wanted to find God
lies and myths. Selling their souls for a bowls of
pottage!
4. I am sad to say, I believe it happening again.
a. I received a communicate the other night from a member
of church which is fighting to keep their doctrine
pure while false leaders try to turn them from God.
b. Like so many other churches, they had allowed variants
of "Christians" into their church who did not hold to
the truth.
c. They had wanted to be tolerant and reach out.
d. Gradually, those who held to false and contrary
doctrine worked their way into key positions and now
they have enough control so that they have presented
a motion to change the church’s constitution in
doctrinal matters.
e. The writer told me, "the pastor and some of the older
people are having a fit."
5. It is amazing to me how seldom it dawns on the liberals
and false teachers to go start a church of their own.
They always seem to work their way into a good church
and ruin it.
6. Jude warned:
Jude 1:4 For there are certain men crept in
unawares, who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of
our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only
Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
B. \\#2:24\\ Interestingly, God knows the godly in the church who
fell asleep at the wheel when they should have been on guard
are going to wake up and have their hands full trying to
fight off the evil they let in, so He says, "I will put no
other burden on you."
1. But He does tell them to keep fighting.
2. Like the children of Israel, who are still fighting the
remnants of the enemies from Joshua’s day, if the church
had just fought to stay pure they would not have to be
fighting the very enemies they welcomed through the front
doors, but they did not.
3. So fight they must now; and it won’t end unless God gives
them a heart to eradicate the compromisers and false
teachers.
V. \\#3:1\\ The fifth prophecy is found in the church Sardis.
A. They will die spiritually.
1. Jesus was careful to say they would not be physically
dead. They would still have a name. That means that they
would still be a person, an entity, be physically alive.
a. Having spiritual breathe is not the same as having
spiritual life.
b. Some Christians have been on a respirator for years!
c. They are being kept alive by artificial means, but
have not had a spiritual excitement, a spiritual
work, a spiritual conviction, a spiritual blessing,
or even a small spiritual fit in a long, long while.
2. You can see the logical progression of these stages.
a. First a church loses its first love.
b. Then it opens itself to false doctrine.
c. Then it allows false leaders.
d. Then it dies spiritually.
e. What else would you expect to happen?
3. Historically, I believe the church died spiritually, yet
continued to call itself Christian for over 1,000 years.
a. That’s is a huge part of church history!
b. How could the church stay dead for so long?
c. The answer is that is much easier to kill something
than it is to take something that has died and
resurrect it!
d. In fact, only God can do that! It requires a miracle,
a direct intervention from God Himself.
4. There is a warning there!
a. Do not let this church die and don’t let your
spiritual fire go out.
b. If you do, it is doubtful that you will get life back
into either one of them!
B. \\#Rev 3:2\\ Strengthen what is left.
1. He did not tell the church when they are spiritually dead
to resuscitate themselves.
a. The dead cannot resuscitate themselves.
b. No dead person ever reached over and got the
electrical paddles to shock his hearts back to
beating.
c. No dead person ever began CPR on his own body.
d. No dead person ever gave himself a shot of epi-
nephrine to jump start his cardio system.
2. If any of these things happens, a third party must do
them.
3. And so if you are spiritually dead, you cannot resuscitate
yourself spiritually.
4. But a dead person can hold on to the last thing he
grips.
5. I read a story years ago about a woman whose child fell in
a well. She could not rescue the child unless she jumped
into the well to tie the rope around him, but if she
jumped into the well she would not be able to pull the
child up. There was no one else around and the child
would drown in a moment so she jumped in herself. When
jumped she did not know how deep the water was, but it
was slightly over her head. She placed the child on her
shoulders, telling him to cry for help and not to cease.
As long as she could, she kept the child on her
shoulders, gasping for air as she had opportunity.
Eventually hypothermia set in and the task became more
and more difficult. She decided to lock her body the
best she could into a position against the opposing wall.
The child continued to scream until a passerby heard him.
A rescue effort was mounted and the child was pulled to
safety, but the mother had died some time earlier. They
found her body still wedged in that supporting position.
6. Although dead, she strengthened what she had left.
7. For her, help came too late; but for the spiritually dead
there is a hope that the Lord may come by and give life
once again.
8. Take whatever spiritual you have left and strengthen it.
VI. \\#3:7-8\\ The sixth prophecy was found in Philadelphia.
A. God would give the church an open door. That means God would
give an almost unlimited opportunity to the church.
1. This was a prophecy which God did.
2. Around 1500 AD, God awakened the dead church and for
some 400 plus years (almost 500 years), there was almost
nothing the church could not do.
a. It cast off its false leaders.
b. It learned again true doctrine.
c. It dawned robes of righteousness and walked in the
glory and power of God.
d. It returned to the task of evangelizing the world,
and literally touched every continent on the globe.
e. Some say that America was founded on Christian
foundations, but I am not certain that is entirely
correct.
(1) I think it might be more correct to say that
American was founded BY Christians and was part
of God’s open-door blessing to the church to
give it base of operations so that it might
touch the world for God.
(2) Remember, it was a believer who felt God had
entrusted him to seek a route to the Indies.
(3) It was Christian pilgrims who first sailed here
to colonize the New Land and Christians who
continued to make the hazardous journey to
settle and populate this wilderness.
(5) America was a land claimed for God, dedicated to
God—not once but many times over—prayed over,
and pioneered with the intend of seeking God’s
best favor.
(6) And out of that effort, a nation was formed
unlike any other with blessings from God like
no other has ever enjoyed.
(7) And although many attempted to close the door of
America that God had opened, they found out time
and time again that the door God had opened, no
man could close!
(8) Yes, I believe this nation to be one of the gifts
given to this world through God’s open-door
policy, and I think what is happening to America
coincides with the closing of that great door!
f. This is a prophecy fulfilled!
B. But just as surely as God can open a door and no man can
close it; so it now seems that once God closes a door,
no man can open it.
1. Foolish individuals—no, that is not accurate—God haters
and blasphemers think that they can make this country
demonic and still have the wealth, the prestige, the
glory of the America God created.
2. They know nothing.
3. They simply help move us from the prophesied Philadelphia
age in church history to the next and the last stage of
prophesied church history.
These prophecies were written 2,000 years ago. They describe not only
our age but every age since Jesus ascended off the Mount of Olives.
The best news I can give is that I think this period, the period of
Laodicea will not last long. Again, once these things start
happening, they will happen to their conclusion rapidly. If we do
not quickly open the door and allow Jesus to put things aright, the
rapture will occur—and that takes us to chapter 4.
But for now, you and I are living in a day prophesied in the Bible
and coming to pass in our lifetimes. Surely, you can see how real
the Bible is. If chapters 2-3 have been fulfilled, you can bet that
chapters 4-22 will be too.
Are you ready?
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