SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/27/2015
9:49 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Pergamum: The Worldly Church PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
2:12-17
Message of the
verses: “12 "And to the angel
of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two-edged sword says
this: 13 ’I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My
name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My
faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 ’But I have a few things against you, because
you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to
put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to
idols and to commit acts of immorality. 1 ’So you also have some who in the
same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 ’Therefore repent; or else I am coming to you
quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth. 17 ’He
who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who
overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a
white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who
receives it.’”
Now before we get started looking at this worldly church
I want to bring up something that is important to realize as we look at these
different churches on our journey through the book of Revelation. Now I have mentioned before that when you
look at all of the churches you will see a downward spiral in their
spirituality with the exceptions of the two churches in which Christ will give
no rebuke to, Smyrna and Philadelphia.
There is a reason as to why the spirituality of these churches goes
downward and it starts with the church in Ephesus where Christ rebukes them
from leaving their first love. Once that
happens, once you lose you love for the Lord Jesus Christ then the other things
that are mentioned in these churches begins to happen beginning with worldliness
and ending up with out and out being lukewarm to which Christ wants you to spit
you out of His mouth and seeing Him standing on the outside of the church
wanting to come in. It all begins with
losing your first love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
I remember listening to a man named Howard Ball who had a
ministry of reviving churches, churches who had fallen into the spiral that we
see in the churches in Revelation. He
made a statement that I will never forget, and this happened in 1974 when I
heard this. He said that he liked to put
his hands around the new believer in order to get warm from their heat of being
a new believer in Christ. They were hot
for the cause of Christ, and I have seen this in people that I have had the
privilege of leading to the Lord, and it is a wonderful thing to see.
I have mentioned in different SD’s that I left a church
after attending it for 32 years because they were trying to turn the church
into what is called a “seeker-oriented church.”
The church wanted to lower themselves to what the world is in order to
attract people from the world to come in and worship there. At first thought you may think that this is
ok, but think about what the church is suppose to be, and one thing it is
suppose to be different than the world, a world in which Satan is in charge
of. Remember when Jesus was tempted in
the wilderness and Satan told him “8 Again, the devil *took Him to a very high
mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, "All these things I
will give You, if You fall down and worship me." 10 Then Jesus *said to
him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, ’YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD,
AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’" 11 Then the devil *left Him; and behold, angels came
and began to minister to Him.” Now
notice Jesus did not say to Satan that he was not in charge of those kingdoms but
told him to only worship the Lord and to serve him. Churches are to be salt and light to the
unbelieving world as we saw in the first chapter of Revelation seeing Christ
walk among the lampstands which are the churches showing that we are to be a
light in a dark place, and that dark place is the world.
What is worldliness?
John MacArthur gives this description of worldliness: “Worldliness is any preoccupation with or
interest in the temporal system of life that places anything perishable before
that which is eternal.” He goes on to
write “Since believers are not part of the world system (John 15:19), they must
not act as though they were. ‘Do not be
conformed to this world,’ wrote the apostle Paul, ‘but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that
which is good and acceptable and perfect’ (Rom 12:2).”
John writes in 1st John 2:15-17 “15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all
that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the
boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The
world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God
lives forever.”
We will begin to look in more detail at this church in
our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: This will be
short, but to the point: I want to stay
away from worldliness which will take grace from our Lord to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, mind
soul, and strength, and to better understand the love He has for me.
Memory verses for the
week: 2 Peter 3:5-9.
5 Now for this very reason
also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in
your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in
your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, 7 and in
your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 Now if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they render you neither useless, nor unfruitful in the true
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9
For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his
purification from his former sins.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jude.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What was the ninth plague
that God placed on Egypt?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/27/2015 11:00 AM
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