The Bible in Revelation 2:5, Jesus says here to the church of Ephesus, Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and REPENT, and do the first works, OR ELSE I will come unto thee quickly, and I will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
What happened to Ephesus? In verse 4 Jesus says that I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Their love for Christ had fallen away. They did great wonderful works and had a lot of activity. But without a love for Christ it becomes a dead religion. That would be a good lesson and message for the church today. There is a lot of activity but not a lot of spirituality. We are running around like chickens when we should be following like sheep.
It goes hand in hand. Religion is working for God trying to earn his love. Salvation is trusting the WORK of God, believing in Whom he hath sent, and receiving his love. The Bible says we love because HE first loved us. In that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Such were some of you. When you get saved you get out of the sinning business. You must choose between sin and the Savior. You love Jesus and hate sin because it takes the love of Jesus out of your heart and it does not glorify God. Jesus hates sin because it destroys, damns, and devours everyone in it's path. Jesus is the only remedy for sin's penalty, power, and presence.
In Revelation 3:14 Jesus is talking to the final church age. This describes the period just before his return. He is also talking to an actual church, the church of the Laodiceans, the 7th church he speaks to. By this church, they are focused on materialism, and are lukewarm and they know not they turned from God. In fact, Jesus is outside this church, knocking to be let back in if anyone will hear him. The first 6 he gives positives and negatives to. The final one, nothing but harsh rebukes. Church 6 is the church of Philadelphia, and Jesus says He has given it an open door. It represents the time of the great awakening in the 1800's. The 7th church is where we are at today. Tomorrow Jesus may come.
Revelation is a book of prophecy. It will literally come to pass as stated like you are reading a newspaper from the future. The book of Genesis says how God literally created everything. The humanists refuse to let God get a foothold and tell them what to do, so they have appeased their dead consciences and came up with a theory of evolution to combat that. There is not a shred of evidence to support evolution, and it is not science. I have addressed creation on my website, ETVFC.org, and have 2 power point presentations up. You can go to DRDINO.com and see some good seminars and information as well. Evolution is a fairy tale for grown ups. Take a frog and put it in a blender and wait a million years. You will not have another frog. You will have million year old soup. Yet we are supposed to believe it rained on rocks for millions of years and the soup came alive and you have everything you have today. I witness with a piece of pizza. Pizzas prove their is a God. When you look at a pizza, how do you know someone made it? Because pizzas prove their is a pizza maker. You didn't see someone make it, but by simply faith you can see it didn't make it self. It did not evolve from a hot pocket. Likewise, creation demands a creator. Order demands an orderer.
Bible prophecy proves the bible. It is scientifically accurate. It literally is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. B.I.B.L.E. The Bible all through the OT mentions Jesus, 1 coming the first time the way of humility, and then coming again as a conquering King. The New Testament literally reveals how that will happen. There will be a great falling away, an onslaught of materialism and false doctrine, and lukewarm living and love of pleasure and breakdown of family and violence like the days of Noah and earthquakes and pestilences and perilous times. Knowledge shall increase and men shall go to and fro says the book of Daniel. Men will deny the obvious evidence for a world wide flood that destroyed everything 4200 years ago. Only Noah and his family survived and you can trace Shem Ham and Japheth as the founders of the 3 main races of people, Oriental, European, and African. The best theory for what happened is a ice meteor hit the earth 4,200 years ago and broke up the fountains of the deep and flooded the earth. This triggered the ice age and it took years for the ice to melt away and isolate the various animals and people in the lands they settled in. Time went on and "in breeding" caused the distinct traits in the humans and animals you see there. That is micro evolution, big dogs to little dogs. That is not macro evolution, from the bog to a frog. There is no true in between transitional fossils to prove macro evolution, and micro already is seen in the Bible. God originated that first.
The end is just as literal. The Bible says Jesus will return with a shout and the dead in Christ will rise. Before hell on earth comes, Jesus pulls the saved out of here. That is our blessed hope. We don't need an underground shelter, we have a Heavenly Saviour. The bible says in revelation after the 7 church ages, that in Revelation Chapter 4 the trumpet blows and Jesus says COME UP HITHER. That is it for the Christian, and even though the unbelievers might have 7 more years if they are not killed in what will follow, that is it for them too. Their fate is sealed once they take the mark of the beast. After the trumpet is where the 144,000 people who get saved from the destruction come from that Jehovah Witnesses try to claim for their church. These are 144,000 male Jewish virgins that are sealed and saved.
Before that Jesus takes you through the 7 church ages. The previous one, Age 6 is during the Great Awakening. Age 7 is today, right now. That is where we are at, and the church today instead thinks everything is wonderful and everyone is saved. Not so.
The lesson here is something Leonard Ravenhill touched on in his book, America is too young to die. The last great commission of Jesus to the church is not Mark 16:15 "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." It is Revelation 3:19-20, The last command Jesus says to the church is REPENT and let Him back into the church! Until that happens we have nothing to bring to a lost and dying world. We need to repent of our humanistic gospel that emphasizes happiness over Holiness, praying a prayer over possessing the Person Jesus, and ministry inside the church and being comfortable with the saved instead of moving outside the church and confronting the LOST. The Bible says to give attendance to DOCTRINE. Instead today we just give attendance to our attendance. If it builds a crowd, it must be of God. If the mayor loves us, we must be doing something right. If Obama picks up pastor to give the opening prayer and our singing group to perform at his gala, we must be getting the blessings of God.
Our country needs to repent. Our church needs to repent. Our church leaders and members need to repent.
True repentance creates a brokenness over our sin. We see how exceedingly sinful we really are. We don't naturally hate sin. Saved people don't naturally care about the lost. We naturally could care less if people die and go to hell. We need God to take over so we supernaturally love people like God does. We need God on us to have boldness to engage this world. I drop my son off for school every day and there is a Tim Hortons right next door. Every so often I stand in front of the cars by the drive through and hand them tracts as they drive thru. There is no drive thru in hell, so it is an opportunity to confront folks with the gospel. I recently looked over at the cars each morning and did nothing about it. This past Friday I had time before I headed for work and would not have gone to the drive through. After dropping my son off at our church academy, I went up the altar and surrendered to God. When I got outside I had desire and power to go up to the cars and give them tracts and stand up for God. Naturally I would be scared and would make excuses why not to do it. But because this was God's desires coming though I had the courage and the ability.
Witnessing is a command. It starts with being honest. First with your own soul. If there is nothing going on between you and God, and no wrestling to witness and not witness, you likely have never met him personally. If you met Him and turned to him from your sin, you have him. If you have him, he should have you. It is a daily thing but it is a true desire that you need to fight to keep. If you have him you will want to share Him.
The church needs to get the order right. Get right with God and then go out and give what you have. Fill up with God and go empty yourself.
We need to repent. We are not as spiritual as we think we are. We couldn't hold a candle up to the saints from as recent as a 100 years ago. We need to be honest that we are lukewarm and too full of the world to care. IF WE ARE SAVED AT ALL to begin with.
First, make sure you are saved. Coming to God his way, not man's. Faith and Repentance. Faith in Christ and turning from idols to GOD to serve Him because we found his love personally for ourselves. Not faith in yourself or your church. Taking the Bible at it's word, and letting the Bible TRUMP everything else, like tradition and church teachings.
Second, if you are saved, REPENT and SURRENDER. Realize the World is all over us. There is more filth in the previews of a PG rated movie than men faced in a year 100 years ago. You need a spiritual bath just walking through Wal Mart. We are not getting holier. We make a lot of noise and today everyone sounds spiritual and sanctified but our hearts are going another direction.
Get a hold of God. And better yet, let God get a hold of YOU!
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