Declaring War on God: Part 3
"Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots." -Psalm 2:8-9
Up until now we have seen how nonbelievers more predominately declare war on God. But now we are moving into the part where God's people and His church declare war on Him. The book of Revelation is written to believers and churches who profess the Name of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Jesus loves His church, and He wants to her functioning in the correct way that brings Him glory and honor. So He tells John to write to these 7 churches to both encourage and correct. Some of these churches were professing a faith that they did not practice; they were living contrary to the Bible. This is what an apostate looks like. The path of apostasy starts with this question: Does my identity look like Christ or culture? Your identity being, who you are, what you believe, and how you behave. God was giving these churches the change to repent, and humble themselves before Him. If we do not repent, God will war against us! He wars with Truth; scripture; The Word of God (Ephesians 6, and Hebrews 4) as well as destruction of nations. We must ALWAYS come back to the Word of God, it is our spiritual victory! We must speak the truth, because the truth is being suppressed in unrighteousness (Romans 1). What we are seeing in our culture today more than ever before is people trading the truth for a lie. Deep inside of us we know what is truth, it is instinctive to us. It's not a matter of acceptance that holds people back from admitting their sin, or the lifestyle they have chosen, it's that innate conviction from God that is yelling, "THIS IS WRONG!" Romans 1:18 says that God shows his anger to those who push His truth away from them. That's what some of these churches were doing, forming a version of Christianity that doesn't command repentance, tolerates, and affirms sin.
We find Jesus rebuking these churches because they have denied His plan for creation, and design for how humans should function. All lifestyles are not acceptable, it's a sin! However, it's not unforgivable. This is what we miss. There is hope! Jesus didn't leave us hopeless in our sin. He is the one who sets us free. Jesus' love is not equal to tolerance, but that of inviting everyone who believes in Him (John 3:16) to come to the foot of the cross and die with Him! And instead of trading the truth for a lie, doing what Martin Luther called, "The Great Exchange" 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:
We must be careful who and how we love. We throw that around a lot, and we end up loving things that destroy God's church! In case you haven't noticed, God has enemies. They are the wolves that attack the church. That's what the church of Thyatira was doing. They were loving and serving well, but they were loving just a little too much, allowing that Jezebel spirit to lead within the church (2:20). Her sexual immorality was leading the people astray. The church at Pergamum was dealing with sexual immorality as well. This is the attitude of having both Jesus and Satan as master. But God is purity and commitment.
Spiritual adultery leads to death and war with God (v.26) That's the language and imagery. In that day it was customary, when two nations would go to war, the King would assemble his people, he'd take a vase or jar made of clay. He would write the name of the opposing king and kingdom as a public act of declaring war on the jar, then, he would slam it on the ground, and it meant they were off to war. So basically in this passage of scripture, and the whole pinnacle of this series is Jesus saying, "Repent, or I'm writing your name, and we're going to war!" Psalm 2:8-9 is a foreshadowing of this. Those of us who stay true to God's Word and obey Him will rule and reign with Jesus over the nations. Not only that, but He has given us authority to declare war on them with the Truth of God's Word as we discussed earlier. I believe this verse is also referring to salvation, to go take the world for Jesus. We are in a war for the souls of our Nation! The World!
Christian brother and sister, we will be maligned, misrepresented, and mistreated when we stand up for what is right. But Jesus promises He will take care of us (2:17). He will declare us innocent. Don't fear oh dear Christian! John was boiled alive, and exiled for standing up for Christ. Yet, in his pain, Jesus shows up and gives him a message to write to the seven churches. Jesus doesn’t talk about, “Hey John, how are you feeling? John, what can I do for you? How can I encourage you? What’s it like to be boiled?” America, and essentially the whole World, has reduced Jesus down to our therapist. And if he does show up, it’s just to talk about me and my feelings, and my hurts, and my wants, and my needs, how hard this life is, and how depressed I am, and he needs to sit there and listen to me and nod, and smile, and take notes, and give a prescription so that my whole life can get better. That’s not who Jesus is! John is suffering, and John is hurting, and do you know what John didn’t get from Jesus? A bunch of statements of ways that he could make his life better. What Jesus immediately did was redirected John's whole focus to the church. Take heart dearly beloved, your reward awaits you. Jesus is coming back for His bride. We must prepare our hearts, and repent so He can find us faithful, and doing the things He has instructed us to do. Look to the church! Jesus loves His church, He gave His life for it. We must first apply the Word to ourselves before we can go out into a broken world.
Up until now we have seen how nonbelievers more predominately declare war on God. But now we are moving into the part where God's people and His church declare war on Him. The book of Revelation is written to believers and churches who profess the Name of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Jesus loves His church, and He wants to her functioning in the correct way that brings Him glory and honor. So He tells John to write to these 7 churches to both encourage and correct. Some of these churches were professing a faith that they did not practice; they were living contrary to the Bible. This is what an apostate looks like. The path of apostasy starts with this question: Does my identity look like Christ or culture? Your identity being, who you are, what you believe, and how you behave. God was giving these churches the change to repent, and humble themselves before Him. If we do not repent, God will war against us! He wars with Truth; scripture; The Word of God (Ephesians 6, and Hebrews 4) as well as destruction of nations. We must ALWAYS come back to the Word of God, it is our spiritual victory! We must speak the truth, because the truth is being suppressed in unrighteousness (Romans 1). What we are seeing in our culture today more than ever before is people trading the truth for a lie. Deep inside of us we know what is truth, it is instinctive to us. It's not a matter of acceptance that holds people back from admitting their sin, or the lifestyle they have chosen, it's that innate conviction from God that is yelling, "THIS IS WRONG!" Romans 1:18 says that God shows his anger to those who push His truth away from them. That's what some of these churches were doing, forming a version of Christianity that doesn't command repentance, tolerates, and affirms sin.
We find Jesus rebuking these churches because they have denied His plan for creation, and design for how humans should function. All lifestyles are not acceptable, it's a sin! However, it's not unforgivable. This is what we miss. There is hope! Jesus didn't leave us hopeless in our sin. He is the one who sets us free. Jesus' love is not equal to tolerance, but that of inviting everyone who believes in Him (John 3:16) to come to the foot of the cross and die with Him! And instead of trading the truth for a lie, doing what Martin Luther called, "The Great Exchange" 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:
17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
We must be careful who and how we love. We throw that around a lot, and we end up loving things that destroy God's church! In case you haven't noticed, God has enemies. They are the wolves that attack the church. That's what the church of Thyatira was doing. They were loving and serving well, but they were loving just a little too much, allowing that Jezebel spirit to lead within the church (2:20). Her sexual immorality was leading the people astray. The church at Pergamum was dealing with sexual immorality as well. This is the attitude of having both Jesus and Satan as master. But God is purity and commitment.
Spiritual adultery leads to death and war with God (v.26) That's the language and imagery. In that day it was customary, when two nations would go to war, the King would assemble his people, he'd take a vase or jar made of clay. He would write the name of the opposing king and kingdom as a public act of declaring war on the jar, then, he would slam it on the ground, and it meant they were off to war. So basically in this passage of scripture, and the whole pinnacle of this series is Jesus saying, "Repent, or I'm writing your name, and we're going to war!" Psalm 2:8-9 is a foreshadowing of this. Those of us who stay true to God's Word and obey Him will rule and reign with Jesus over the nations. Not only that, but He has given us authority to declare war on them with the Truth of God's Word as we discussed earlier. I believe this verse is also referring to salvation, to go take the world for Jesus. We are in a war for the souls of our Nation! The World!
Christian brother and sister, we will be maligned, misrepresented, and mistreated when we stand up for what is right. But Jesus promises He will take care of us (2:17). He will declare us innocent. Don't fear oh dear Christian! John was boiled alive, and exiled for standing up for Christ. Yet, in his pain, Jesus shows up and gives him a message to write to the seven churches. Jesus doesn’t talk about, “Hey John, how are you feeling? John, what can I do for you? How can I encourage you? What’s it like to be boiled?” America, and essentially the whole World, has reduced Jesus down to our therapist. And if he does show up, it’s just to talk about me and my feelings, and my hurts, and my wants, and my needs, how hard this life is, and how depressed I am, and he needs to sit there and listen to me and nod, and smile, and take notes, and give a prescription so that my whole life can get better. That’s not who Jesus is! John is suffering, and John is hurting, and do you know what John didn’t get from Jesus? A bunch of statements of ways that he could make his life better. What Jesus immediately did was redirected John's whole focus to the church. Take heart dearly beloved, your reward awaits you. Jesus is coming back for His bride. We must prepare our hearts, and repent so He can find us faithful, and doing the things He has instructed us to do. Look to the church! Jesus loves His church, He gave His life for it. We must first apply the Word to ourselves before we can go out into a broken world.
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