The Church of Endangered Loyalty: Part 2 - Revelation 1: 16-17

0:49Revelation 2, beginning in verse 12, and to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write, the one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this, 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 is killed among you where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold to 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 impiety. Morality. So, you also have some who, in the same way, hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore, repent, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth. 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. Question for you: How do churches, and for that matter, even entire denominations, become compromised? You look back over the last 500 years, you can see great movements within church, whether it be Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, or our Baptistic Congregationalism.

2:37There are within each of these movements high points in their history where devotion to the God of Scripture was clear, bright, clean. And yet, you, with just a casual look around the American church seen today, wonder. Can see great defection. And what I mean by this: listen, when a church appoints leaders who do not meet the biblical qualifications for leadership, they do more than just appoint a person to a leadership post. There's so much more to it.

3:25As we're going through a leadership process in our church now, as we do each year, when you appoint somebody, when you place somebody in a leadership position, you do more than just appoint a person, you embrace their lifestyle, you embrace their mindset, you embrace their view of scripture, their view of God, their view of sin, and you hold them up as beacons, not only for this church, but to the whole world. So who we put into leadership says a lot about us.

4:08To appoint women to roles that only the Bible designates for biblically qualified men is to embrace the feminism of our day and to elevate cultural ideals above scripture. Likewise, to ordain homosexuals to leadership positions in the church is to embrace and get this, endorse and get this, recommend and get this, promote sexual immorality not only in the church, but to all peoples everywhere, and to elevate cultural morals above God's. And yet, we can look across our landscape and see all of this taking place.

5:07The elevation of cultural ideals above biblical ideals. How do we get there? How does a great movement get there? How does a great movement now become a monument to something that happened in the past? And the spiritual vitality and faithfulness to Christ and to the God of Scripture and the Christ who has revealed himself to Scripture completely gone. How do we get there? And maybe more importantly, how do we make sure that this doesn't happen to us?

5:48What you see around here, what you see, our association, our very property and everything itself is an expression of our love for the Christ to Scripture. How do we make sure that we don't defect? Well, we need to learn some of the lessons from the church of Pergamum. We need to learn some of the lessons that Christ wrote to this church at Pergamum. We began looking at it last time. But loyalty to Christ begins to erode when a church begins to tolerate the compromising philosophies of its times and allows those who embrace them a place to teach them. That's where loyalty to Christ begins to erode.

6:42When we tolerate compromising philosophies and then tolerate those who embrace them a place of teaching within the ranks of the church. Well, specific to Pergamum, there were those who promoted participation in the temple worship scene, the party scene, and all that was associated with temple worship there. We looked at an overview of the city last time. Up there on that hill that rose out of the ground a thousand feet, there were temples to all different kinds of deities, and up on the top was this.

7:30Temple to the dedicated to the emperor worship. There is the temple over there to Dionysus, the God of the party, the God of wine, the God of oh, the God of the something to do in the evening. But it wasn't just the temple worship, party scene, but it was also the sexual immorality and compromise that went along with it, and the marriage compromise that went along with it. They typically go together, the temple worship, sexual immorality, and forbidden marriages. Certainly among believers, marriage is to be only in the Lord. The scripture makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 7:39.

8:19And the issue there is because when one joins himself or herself to another person, they inevitably join themselves to another person's lifestyle, another person's values, another person's view of God, and another person's view of Christ. So, as you study Israel's history, the prohibition to intermarry within Israel was more about spiritual purity than it was ethnic purity. Rahab, the Canaanite, married in Ruth, the Moabite, grandmother. Great-grandmother of David married into Israel with nothing but praise. Well, there were those at Pergamum, as we saw last time, who were relaxing the biblical standards of marriage, the biblical standards on sexual relationships, and they were participating and advocating participation in the temple worship party scene.

9:31It's important to remember that the church itself had not compromised in these areas, but it was tolerating those who had, and they were allowing those who had teaching places or opportunities to voice and teach others to do the same. So I want us to briefly review verses 12 through 14, what we got through last time, briefly comment on verse 15, and then start looking at verse 16 and 17. Look back at verse 12, Jesus' self-characterization and to the church and to the angel of the church at Pergamum, right? The one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this.

10:21Jesus describes himself as with a weapon of war, the sword that was two-edged for piercing. For running an enemy through, bringing them to an end, rendering them ineffective. That is how he characterizes himself. It's a threatening characterization. Remember, Pergamum, one of their special things about them is that they had the power of the sword. The Roman government had entrusted them with the power to execute at will, no questions asked. They had that authority, and Jesus is reminding the church there that he is one who has a bigger sword and carries a greater authority.

11:14Verse 13 and 14, we can see what Jesus liked about this church, and we can see also what the threat that they were facing. Look back at verse 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. Jesus liked the location and intensity of their loyalty. Right there, where Satan has his greatest influence, there was this church that remained faithful, intensely faithful, right there under the shadow of Satan's throne.

12:00But they were facing a threat. And Jesus in verse 14 itemized two of those threats. I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idol and to commit acts of immorality. That is, he kept teaching Balak. Balaam, persona of satanic influence, kept teaching Balak. He kept teaching them how to put a stumbling block in Israel's path so as to bring Israel down. Cannot curse those whom God has cursed, cannot bless or cannot curse those who God has blessed, and Balaam knew that, so he sought to bring them down through getting them to spiritually compromise and bring God's wrath down on them. So, how did he do this? How did Balaam bring down, teach Balak to bring down Israel?

13:12Well, he kept, he said, you know what you need to do? Invite them to your temple sacrifices, invite them to this temple party scene at your religious festivals. And make them big, make them good. Make them great, and then have a lot of pretty women there, have a lot of accommodating women there, have good food, stroke their ego, intermarry with them, get them involved in your worship practices. Synchronize what they believe with what you believe. Jewish historians refer to Balaam as the father of religious syncretism. It's been a threat to the church, to God's people, from the very beginning. Take a little bit of what God says, take a little bit of what the world says, put them together, come up with your own ideology.

14:17You can see that in Eve, you can see that down through the ages. But it was the church's indiscreet tolerance of such fleshly teachings that Jesus had an issue with. They hadn't compromised, but they were tolerating those who had. But then in verse 15, it wasn't just with the Balaam, the teaching of Balaam, it's clear that they were also allowing the Nicolaitans the same kind of voice. Look at verse 15. 15. So you also have some who, in the same way, hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

15:07So the second threat to the loyalty of this church to Christ is the teaching of the Nicolaitans. You remember, in Ephesus, they hated the teachings of the Nicolaitans, and Christ commends them for it. Spent some time there looking at the Nicolaitans and probably can infer that whatever specifics that they were teaching, that it involved in the same way similar things that the Balaamites were teaching. Basically, fleshly cultural compromise. Maybe they got there a different route, different arguments, but in many ways gets to the same outcome.

15:59So the threat to their loyalty that Jesus is so concerned about is this indiscreet toleration. Just tolerating passiveness. Let it go on. This church greatly underestimated the destructive power of those who espoused doctrines that promoted fleshly indulgences. It devastates, it separates. God from his people. They were lethargic in their opposition, as opposed to the Ephesians, who were zealous, casual acceptance, indiscreet toleration. And these are fitting names: Balaam and Nicholas. Balaam comes from two Hebrew words that literally means he swallows the people. He swallows the people. Nicholas comes from two Greek words, which literally means victory over the people. Victory over the people. And so the church was in danger of having its loyalty to God swallowed up by the teaching of the Balaamites or conquered by the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Either way, threat, a threat.

17:33And that's where we've been so far. Jesus has commended them for their loyalty. This is what he liked about the church. Jesus has chastised them for their indiscreet tolerance of fleshly ideologies. This is the threat he saw. Now, today I just want to look at two commands, two promises. There's actually two commands. And two promises. There's the command promised to Pergamum, and then there's a command promised to all the churches. And I realize this morning we probably will just not get through it all. That's okay.

18:19But Jesus has commended them, he's chastised them, and next he's going to command them. Let me tell you how you make it right. And so I want us to look at this. I want us to understand what Jesus commanded, what he promises, so that we will ourselves hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the church today, and specifically this church today. So, first, or I should say third, we'll look at Jesus' command, his command, this command and promise to Pergamum. Look at verse 16. Therefore, repent, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth. The command, very clearly, repent. Repent.

19:12What does repentance mean? It's have a change of mind and heart. And really, the tense of the verb indicates that Jesus has in mind a complete change of trajectory. He's saying, you are on a bad course. Repent. Change your trajectory. That's what repentance is about. Have a change of mind and heart that affects the trajectory that you are on, and so that you no longer go down this road. You are on a very dangerous road. He's saying you need to come to a definitive break with your indiscreet tolerance of those who are syncretizing the Christian faith with worldly ideologies.

20:07Biblical theology and worldly theology don't work. Biblical purity, biblical holiness, and worldly uncleanness don't work together. And you need to make a clean break. You need to recognize the threat, and you need to make a clean break with it, or it will bring you down as it did Israel at Peor. When you can think about this, there's several applications. The repent, repent. In light of what he's just said, repent. I could think of there's implications for those who espouse the false teachings.

21:01Those who endorse, there are those who are teaching these false doctrines. There are those who espouse them, and for them, they need to turn away from the party scene, the temple worship scene, the forbidden marriage, the sexual immorality, all the compromises of sexual immorality, and advocating and allowing, bringing that into the church, or even taking a stand to let that come in. Those who advocate that need to have a complete change of trajectory. They need a clean break with such practices. They need to come with a clean break of defending such practices and recognize what the Bible says about true worship to God and defilement that comes from the world. So there is certainly an application to those who espouse false teachers in the church. But there's second, probably more pronounced here, is the message is for those who tolerate false teachings, those who tolerate false teachings.

22:19There are those who have just grown tired. Maybe they don't want to confront it. There's an issue there. And put this in the context of pergamum. There's been a lot of Political pressure. There's been a lot of heartache. There's been martyrdom. There are people that are being marginalized in society. This is not an easy situation for this church. And there are probably some of those that are just saying, yeah, I'm not going to compromise, but I'm not going to really get down on those who do because I understand the times are tough. And they just took more of a passive, careless stance against these false teachings that were coming in the church. For those, they need to have a change of trajectory as well. They need to be impassioned for the truth of Scripture, the truth of pure worship, even in the midst of Satan's throne.

23:22They need to weed out of their corporate church life all schools of thought that promote fleshly ideologies, fleshly worship, and allow sexual relationships outside the biblical union, those who pervert marriage union and justify all the syncretistic practices of church life. They need a change of trajectory. It's a call to be jealous for the purity of the church. And that's what he's calling them to do. That's the command: repent. Very simple. Begin of verse 16. But look at his promise to the church. Or else, I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth.

24:21If the church doesn't repent, refuses to repent, they're going to meet Christ as their adversary, the one with the sword that comes out of his mouth. He says, or else I am coming to you quickly. The coming is best understood as Christ's future personal return. Some have taken this to mean, well, Christ is going to come against this church maybe in the next couple of years and just weed them out, take them out, that kind of thing. No, I think the language here speaks of this promise that Jesus is coming quickly. In fact, that's how the whole book of Revelation ends. Revelation 22, 20, one of the last things said in the whole book is, I am coming quickly. Same language here. He is coming quickly.

25:11He is going to return. And what he's saying here, what I think is the best interpretation, as I understand how it's put together here, is, I am coming to you quickly. Repent, or else, when I show up, when I come quickly, I'm coming against you, not for you. You will meet me as your adversary in judgment. The reason I say this, for a number of reasons, but if he is saying this to the church, that if you don't get your act together, I'm going to come and wage war with you, we'd have a pretty clean church on planet Earth right now. He would have kept coming and purifying out the church in historical episodes. No, he lets the church go, he lets them do their thing, yes.

26:07But he is coming. And those who think that they're going to meet Christ as their friend are going to meet him as their enemy, adversary. The them is best understood as the church, not just those who are embracing the false doctrines, but the letter is written, keep in mind, to the angel or messenger, the church at Pergamum. It is to be read to the church. The message is to the angel, to the messenger. Tell them to repent, and if they don't, I am going to come, and when I come, I will wage war with them. The church itself, Christ returned, will find Christ. Lord, but I thought. You were, I thought we knew you. I never knew you.

27:07And the sword is fitting for a couple of reasons. Keep in mind, the enemies of Christ are going to be destroyed by the word of his mouth in Revelation 19. Remember Balaam. You might want to just turn there. We'll spend a little time. You've got to get your mind around Balaam, or you cannot really get your mind around this exhortation. But what happens in, you get all this in Numbers 22. But what happened when Balaam? Balaam wants to bring down, he wants reward. That's the way of Balaam, the error of Balaam. He thought he could bring down a curse upon Israel. That's his error. And then his teaching, his teaching is to get them to syncretize their religion with pagan ideologies. And so God tells him not to go. And then he goes anyway. And in verse 22, but God was angry with him. Chapter 22, verse 22 of Numbers. But God was angry because he, Balaam, was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey and two servants. Were with him. So here comes the angel of the Lord, and many see this is a reference to the pre-incarnate Christ. He takes his, and justly so, in many instances, here as well. When the donkey saw the angel, so he did, so Balaam doesn't see the angel. The donkey does, but he's got his sword. He's come out as an adversary against Balaam. Christ doesn't like the teaching of the Balaamites.

29:00File that away. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with the sword drawn in the hand, the donkey turned off from the way and went back into the field. But Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path of the vineyards with a wall on this side and a wall on that side. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed herself to the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall. So he struck her again. The angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn to the right hand or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam. So Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick. And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey. And she said to Balaam, What have I done to you? I wonder if that donkey had an accent.

29:53What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? Then Balaam said to the donkey, Because you Have made a mockery of me. If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now. The donkey said to Balaam, Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you? And he said, No. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his sword, with his drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed to the ground.

30:28Christ doesn't tolerate the teaching of Balaam, comes out with the sword. It's consistent. Religious syncretism is the way of the devil, and Christ will do away with both those who teach it and those who tolerate it. And as you keep reading the narrative of Balaam and what happens in Numbers 22 through 25, you get it. I'll just make sure I bring this freshly to your mind. Some of you may not have been reading in Numbers 22, 23, 24, 25 this week. But it's a lot of time devoted to this individual prophet.

31:18But what has happened is Balak, the king of Moab, sees this great, mighty people, Israel, on the plains of Moab, and he gets afraid, and so he calls to. Balaam says, Come and curse these people. Balaam says, I can't curse them because God has blessed them. And so this goes on for a while. And Balaam comes to speak, and he speaks, but he says several things. Look at what he says in chapter 24 and verse 7.

31:49And his king and his seed will be by many waters, and his king shall be higher than agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. He starts speaking about Israel, and he speaks about their king. And he goes on in verse 17, 24, 17. He says, I see him. I see him, the king, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come forth from Jacob. A scepter shall rise from Israel, and he shall crush through the forehead of Moab.

32:24Well, that's not what Balak wanted to hear. Numbers 24:19, one from Jacob will have dominion. And so Balaam, who's called to curse, ends up providing a blessing. Balak, the king of Moab, gets all upset. But then we know what, in chapter 25, something happens. We know that Balaam counseled Balak to bring Israel down. Through the sexually immoral relationships and religious syncretism, and to do so through the women of Midian and Moab. And Balaam knew that religious syncretism was the way to bring them down, to bring God's anger against Israel. And so, as we read earlier, we see that verse chapter 25: Israel was there at Shatim. The people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to their sacrifices of their God, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods, so that Israel joined themselves to the Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel. And so you have there this episode of compromise.

34:01And it's moved God to anger, assemble the leaders, you're going to kill the people who have participated in this. And while they're doing so, you get this picture of a priest, a zealot priest, zealous priest. Verse 6. Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman in the sight. Of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting. So here comes this brazen, this is a brazen sin.

34:42In light of what's going on, there is this brazen couple that goes and going to sin openly and right in front of the weeping that is going on at the tent of meeting. Verse 7, when Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw it, he rose from the midst of the congregation, took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. Those who died by the plague were both. We're 24,000.

35:26Very graphic, especially for Mother's Day. Not your typical Mother's Day sermon, I realize. But it's what we have in the text. But then you have, so this is what happens to those who spiritually intermarry with worldliness. Both the instigator and the one who tolerated, both. It perverts it all. And it threatens relationships. With God. But then, what's surprising in all this is how Phineas is commended. Verse 10, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned away my wrath from the sons of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore, behold, I will give him my covenant of peace, and it shall be for him and his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel. That's saying a lot about this priest. He was a good priest. He turned away the wrath of God from the people.

36:56He was jealous with God's jealousy. Look back. He was jealous with. It's not just he was jealous for the Lord. He was jealous with God's jealousy, with my jealousy. He embodied God's passion in the matter. God does not want Israel in union with false gods. He knows the way of false gods. He does not want his people joined to the ideologies and the principles. That separate his people from himself because he's a good God. He's a loving God.

37:38He was jealous. And shocking, he provided atonement. You see it right there in the text? He provided atonement for the sons of Israel. A covering. He turned away God's wrath. I'd love to go into a whole teaching on atonement right here and help us understand what happens. Atonement is a covering, it turns away God's wrath. Of course, we see this beautifully pictured in our Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect high priest, who is jealous with God's jealousy. He is a good priest. He turns the wrath of God away from his people so that the people are not consumed.

38:23Solomon's downfall, if you will remember, has to do with the same kind of intermarriages. This is what brought the unified kingdom under David into the divided kingdom under Solomon. It was these unions and sexual immorality that so charged Solomon and brought about a divided kingdom. Christ will not tolerate divided devotion among his people. He loves them too much to do so. He loves his father too much to allow it. Christ doesn't lead anywhere else except for pure devotion to God.

39:11Divided devotion comes from a divided heart. A divided heart comes from divided teachings, mixed worship. Christ loves his people, and he loves his father too much. And as a zealous priest, he won't stand for it. Well, that's the first cycle. Jesus' command and promise to pergamum, verse 16. Let's look at verse 17 for a moment. There is a second command and promise that happens here. This command being given to all the churches and the promises to all the churches. We'll probably just have time to look at Jesus' command here briefly. But look at verse 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. So here's the command. This is the command to all the churches. Be hearing, be listening, hear what the Spirit of God is saying. Be listening, be heeding.

40:34Be hearing with the intent to obey, to heed, to take in what Christ is exhorting all of the churches, not just the church of Pergamum, not just the seven churches there, but all the churches, including us today. Be hearing, be listening, be taking in. What is the Spirit saying? Well, several things. Make a few observations that what he's saying that comes loud and clear. Number one, the Spirit of God wants a church environment that fosters loyalty to Christ. That's what the Spirit of God wants. He wants this to be a church that fosters loyalty to Christ, the loyalty like that of Antipas, who, according to church tradition, was martyred, slowly roasted in a brazen bull for not paying tribute to Domitian.

41:35He wants a church that overcomes every stumbling block that Satan throws in their way. Specifically, the syncretism temptation. Listen, we do this all the time. We take a little bit of truth, we take a little bit of error, but certainly as a church, corporate church, he does not. The Spirit wants a church to specifically avoid mixing truth with error, clean with the unclean. A second thing that I think is clear: the Spirit wants everyone to have a practical Phineas-type zeal against unholy unions with the world. He doesn't want a quiet tolerance. And I'm talking about within the church. I'm not talking any kind of violence. I'm not talking anything like that, but an aggression again, an discontentment with allowing that which erodes loyalty to Christ among us.

42:52It's not just the leadership, it's everybody. And this shouldn't be too difficult for us to understand. And I realize my time is getting away. So I want to maybe share with you, since it is Mother's Day, a little parable. Not a parable that you get out of the Bible, but one that I came up with. It's the parable of the unholy wife and mother. Just perfect for Mother's Day, right? This might be a little disturbing, maybe a little PG. You may have to do some. Explaining to your kids a little bit, but I think they'll get it. But I want to talk to you a little bit about the parable of the unholy wife and mother. You'll remember this Mother's Day. But suppose there is a man with eight children. He's probably homeschooled.

43:49And this man dearly loves his wife and kids. He's committed to them, heart and soul. Self-sacrificing, everything that a good father does, a loving father, he gives, he gives, he sacrifices, he gives, cares for us, he's attentive. And now suppose two of his children think the man should marry the UPS man. Think the two of the children think, I'm sorry, think his, that the wife should marry the male man or the UPS man. Think about that for just a second.

44:32Two of his children really get to where they like the UPS man. He's a cool dude, and all of a sudden they want the wife and mother to be joined to him, or at least have a relationship with him. And so what they do is they start strategizing on how to figure out how to create circumstances to bring the UPS man in connection with mom. This is horrible. But so they start ordering packages to be, certain packages that would that would be delivered right to the door. And then they set up a little situation where there's lemonade and they try to entice a situation where mom could sit down and eat and fellowship and carry on some sort of emotional affair with this UPS man.

45:29That'd be pretty awful, wouldn't it? Now, think for a moment that the wife mother really had no intentions of being unfaithful at all. She didn't want to be unfaithful to her husband. In fact, she wasn't, but she allowed her kids to go on continuing doing this practice. What would you think about her? Now, suppose that this father, this husband, well, let me ask you a few questions. What would you say about the wife and mother's love who tolerated her kids to do this?

46:23It wasn't a very holy love for her husband, was it? To tolerate this kind of activity with her children. Do you think that this would make the man jealous? What if the man wasn't jealous? There'd be something unholy about his love, wouldn't there? This should move a man to jealousy. This, if his love is pure and holy, it would move him to jealousy because something is really off. And if the wife's love is holy, she would be horrified that her children would even think something like that and would not tolerate it for a moment.

47:15Do you think this is a good environment for loyalty to flourish in this home? Not at all. What do you think the other kids should do? What do you think they should do? They should be as horrified as the mother. They should be stirred to the same kind of jealousy that would provoke the father and the husband. Or something's really unholy about their love. We can think about all this. What needs to have happened? What needs to happen?

48:11Well, a change in direction, a change in the atmosphere. You see, the Spirit of God wants loyal love to God. The Spirit wants God's loyal love to his people to be met with the same kind of loyal love in return. That's the kind of holy love, and he wants that in the whole church, not just in a few. This indiscreet tolerance of worldly ideologies threatens loyalty to Christ. And if we are going to be a church that when Christ returns, that he finds a faithful remnant here, it will be because there was a zeal and a love for the Christ of Scripture that outweighed the deadness or the lethargy to confront those who are compromising and syncretizing biblical theology with worldly theology.

49:25Well, as I promised, we wouldn't get through it all. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you, Father, that in this body there is a loyalty to you. There is a love for you. I thank you for the many mothers that are here that have given their lives to you and to serve you, to love their husbands, to love their families. And Father, I thank you for their witness and their testimony and how this embodies they are living testimonies to what faithfulness to the God of the universe looks like. And I thank you, Father, and I pray that you would raise up more mothers and continue to, who will continue to foster a community of loyalty to you. And Father, not only in their families, but in the church. And Father, I pray for all of us here as we ponder these things, that we take to heart the seriousness of this drawn sword against those who hold to the teaching of Balaam. Father, may that not be us. And help us, Father, and always in love and mercy to be able to confront with truth and grace in a way that most pleases you and edifies your people and makes a witness for your great name in this earth. Thank you, Father. Help us to love you more. Help our love. To be holy, and we ask your Spirit to bring that about in Jesus' name. Amen.