SUNDAY SOUNDS OF PRAISE-Oh What a Savior-Charles Billingsley

A Study in Revelation Week 2

Revelation 2:1 – 3:22

Remember, the Book of the Revelation is about Jesus Christ. It divides itself into three parts:

1.  The PERSON of Jesus Christ

2.  The POSSESSION of Jesus Christ — the church in the world, Chapters 2, 3

3.  The PROGRAM of Jesus Christ

In this lesson we will look at the Possession of Jesus Christ: the church. The Book of the Revelation deals with seven churches, the church in: Ephesus (2:1-7); Smyrna (2:8-11); Pergamum (2:12-17); Thyatira (2:18-29); Sardis (3:1-16); Philadelphia (3:7-13) and Laodicea (3:14-22).

Each of the churches have characteristics that the bible describes as positives and negatives. There are characteristics that Jesus loves and those He hates.

Ephesus

What Jesus loves: hard work, perseverance and the rejection of false teachers.

What Jesus hates: They have “left their first love,” the gospel…even Jesus Christ Himself.

What Jesus promises: eternal life to those who overcome through Him (their first love)

Smyrna

What Jesus loves: Their spiritual richness in the face of slander.

What Jesus hates: those who rail against the church.

What Jesus promises: the faithful unto death will receive the crown of eternal life.

Pergamum

What Jesus loves: they have remained true to Jesus in the face of satanic influences

What Jesus hates: infiltrators who engage in idol worship, sin and compromise with the world (Nicolaitans).

What Jesus promises: a white stone with a new name written on it. In Revelation 19:12 we learn that this is a reference to the Word of God…Jesus Christ.

Thyatira

What Jesus loved: their love, faith, service, perseverance and growth.

What Jesus hated: Jezebel, the false teacher and adulteress and her ilk in the church.

What Jesus promises: spiritual authority and Himself, the morning star (see Revelation 22:16).

Sardis

What Jesus loves: their excitement.

What Jesus hates: that their excitement is fake; they are really “asleep at the wheel” and dead .

What Jesus promises: to the few who are real, Heaven and security in the Book of Life.

Philadelphia

What Jesus loves: that they have kept His Word and have exalted His Name.

What Jesus hates: that they have allowed Judaizers into the church…those who want to blend the Old Covenant (Jews) with the New Covenant (Christianity).

What Jesus promises: protection from the future “hour of trial” (tribulation), His soon return and a role in the new Jerusalem.

Laodicea

What Jesus loves: not much.

What Jesus hates: that they lack fervor for the Word; their sense of spiritual narcissism. They are dull and spiritually lifeless.

What Jesus promises: if they will repent, he will enter their congregation and feed them spiritually and they will experience salvation.

Lessons for our churches

Our churches’ focus must be Jesus. Some ethereal concept of “God” is unacceptable. Our first love must be Jesus Christ and His gospel in everything that we do.

Our churches must withstand persecution by being absorbed by the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary.

Our churches must collectively repent when we stray from the gospel.

Our churches must guard against all false teaching wherever it is found.

Our churches must be alert, energetic and awake.

Our churches must patiently wait on God to do His work in us through Christ.

Our churches must be hot for Christ. He must be our in-all, of-all, through-all, and by-all of everything we do and stand for.

SUNDAY SOUNDS OF PRAISE-He Touched Me-Gaither Vocal Band

A Study of the Revelation Week 1

Let's get one thing straight from the get-go: There is no such book as "Revelations" in the Bible. The book is "Revelation..." singular. From Chapter 1, verse 1 to Chapter 22, verse 21, there is only ONE revelation. It is the revelation of Christ's ultimate triumph and the events leading up to it, the events surrounding it and the events to follow it.

The Greek word for "revelation" in verse 1 is  apokalupsis which means "an uncovering" or "unveiling."

The old King James version titles it "The Revelation of St. John the Divine." That is categorically wrong. The NIV calls it simply, "Revelation." That also is wrong. The book names itself in the very first verse: The revelation of Jesus Christ.

Why have self-proclaimed scholars missed that point? You got me. I have no idea. It is so clear that you almost don't need the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you. (But trust me, you DO need Him to get it right.)

So get it straight. This book is the revelation of Christ given to John.

The second thing to learn is that The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is not about churches in Ephesus, Thyratira, Sardis or anywhere else. It is not about strange beasts, black and white horses, lamp stands or who is or is not sealed. It is about Jesus Christ.

The third thing to learn is that The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ was not given to tell us about how "end times" affects or will affect us. The prophecies contained in the book are there to show the superiority of Christ and His ultimate victory. (Praise God! We get to share in it!)

If you are immersed in white robes, trumpets, angels and dragons and miss Jesus, you have misinterpreted the book.

The final thing to learn is that there are NO mysteries in the book. Everything in the book is explained in the book, and any attempt to ascribe to its content anything but the supremacy of Christ is heresy.

Many, many...far too many TV preachers have complicated the book in order to make themselves look smart, scholarly or insightful. Do not listen to them. They are false prophets of the kind Jesus warned about in Matthew 7, that Paul spoke of in Galatians, 1 Timothy and other books, and that John addressed in 1st. 2nd and 3rd John.

You might have noticed that I listed four things to learn. In reality, there is only one, and His name is Jesus Christ.

So...let's get to it.

The Book of the Revelation Chapter 1

Verse 1-2 - Here the book is named. Here we also learn that God gave this revelation to John. He gave it to John to show to His servants. (More on this in a moment.) He gave it to John because John is the only disciple who was present for ALL of Jesus' ministry, right up to the cross and the resurrection. He gave it to John because John "testifies to everything he saw - that is the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Verse 3 - We who read this book (prophecy), hear this book and take it to heart (that is, accept its protagonist: Jesus Christ) will be made deeply satisfied (blessed). The time of Christ's triumph was, is and always will be. It is near right now. As the song writer once penned: He's as close as the mention of His name.

Verse 4 - No debate here. The earthly author of the book is John. This is John the Beloved. This is John who watched the crucifixion. This is John who ran to the tomb to witness the resurrection. This was John who was present at the ascension.

He proclaims Christ's grace and His peace. He calls Christ the one who is, who was, and who is to come. He also claims to bring greetings from the "seven spirits" before the throne of Jesus.

Scholars do not agree on who or what these seven spirits are. Three interpretations prevail:

1) they use a biblical number of completeness or perfection (7) to signify the Holy Spirit;

2) they are angelic beings like the seraphim or cherubin;

3) they are the seven spirits listed in Isaiah 11:2 [ (1) Spirit of the Lord; (2) Spirit of Wisdom; (3) Spirit of Understanding; (4) Spirit of counsel; (5) Spirit of Power; (6) Spirit of Knowledge and (7) Spirit of the fear of the Lord.]

I personally lean toward #1, but can also see #3. I cannot accept #2.

Verse 5 - Once again, the issue is not who the spirits are, but who Christ is: the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

Verse 6 - Christ loves us, He died for us and He makes us into a kingdom of priests. This is not the first or only reference to Christians being priests. Check out 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9; and Hebrews 7:11, 7:12, 7:14 and 7:24.

A priest is one who has access to God. You are a priest, not just figuratively, but in every sense of the word. Our very purpose is single-fold: to serve God, who is glory and power forever. AMEN!

Verse 8 - Jesus was a member of the Godhead in the beginning, during His life and from now throughout eternity. He says of Himself that He is the "Alpah and Omega, who is, and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

"The almighty!" Can there possible be any clearer that Jesus and God are One?

Music for Congregational Singing

Here is an outline of what music, particularly congregational music, should be:

A. Music should be easy for the congregation to sing.
     1.  A “new” song might not be a good song if it cannot be sung by the participants.

     2.  Most hymns and many choruses fit the bill.
     3.  If you want the congregation to engage in worship and praise,           make it possible for them.

B. Music should invoke a range of emotions, including:
     1. Joy
     2. Confidence
     3. Certainty
     4. Life’s difficulties and Christ’s solution

C. Music must center on God through Christ, not on ourselves.
     1. He must always be the point of our singing.
     2. He must always be exalted in our singing.
     3. He must always be revered, honored and glorified in our singing.

D. Music must not feel like a performance
     1. Performance puts the focus on us instead of Him.
     2. Performance emphasizes the wrong values.
     3. Performance ignores our unworthiness outside of Christ.

E. Music must be well done.
     1. Excellence as an offering to God should be the goal of our music
     2. Perfection will never be reached but must be sought.
     3. Well done music requires practice and repetition

F. Music must not have an overpowering accompaniment.
     1. Accompaniment must not hinder worship and praise.
     2. Accompaniment must fit the lyrics
          a) One would never accompany “Be Still and Know that I Am God” with loud brass and cymbals.
     3. A cappella music should be tried occasionally.  

G. Music’s lyrics must be doctrinally sound.

     1. Many hymns are doctrinally sound, but some are not. Know the difference.
          a) Are we to cherish the cross or the one on the cross?
          b) Do we have to invite the Holy Spirit to be present? Isn’t He already here?

          c) Should “I” be the focus of the song?

Curses for a Christian's Disobedience? That's a Heresy.

Does God ever curse a Christian?

No.

Does He ever correct a Christian's behavior?

Yes.

But He never curses a Christian.

Jesus bore the curse for us on the cross.

I didn't just make that up.

Paul wrote about it in Galatians 3:10-14

"All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.' Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because 'The righteous will live by faith.' The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, 'The man who does these things will live by them.' Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.' He redeemed in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

The most joyous statement in that joyous statement is: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us..."

Notice also that He did so in order that we might receive the blessing of Abraham, that is: the blessing of uncountable additions to the family of God through Christ and the blessing of God's presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit..

That word blessing is important. It is often said that it means "happy." But in the original language it is used to denote deep spiritual satisfaction.

The beatitude in Matthew 5:3 could read: "Deeply spiritually satisfied are those who recognize their need for Godly spiritual enrichment."

I have heard Christians say, "God has blessed me with a nice house," or "God has blessed me with good health," or "God has blessed me with a comfortable retirement" or many other attributions of the physical to God's blessing.

Are there no Christians who are poor, homeless, or sick? Are there no Christians who struggle with having to work beyond retirement age? If a Christian is poor, homeless or sick, is he under a curse while those who prosper are blessed by God?

That is pure Jewish thinking. In the Jewish mind, blessings were physical. The Judaisers of Galatians thought the same thing.

Consider this: If you need some sort of blessing beyond the blessing of Christ's atoning death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, then the blessing of Christ's atonement was insufficient to bless you adequately.

So God has blessed us in Christ and He is all sufficient. God will never curse one of His own. Christ became the curse for us.

Enjoy the blessings of your salvation!

1st, 2nd and 3rd John Week 6

Like all lost people, the false teachers called Gnostics needed to know the gospel. They need to know who God is. They need to know about sin. They need to know about repentance, They need to know that sin separates. They need to know Christ, the one who saves us from our sin. They need to know His love.

1 John 5:1-12

Verse 1 - The phrase "born of God" is a reference to the virgin birth of Jesus. If we are to love God, we must love Christ.

Verse 2 - Be clear, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. That curse, according to Paul's letter to the Romans, is sin and death. But Paul also says that Christ has redeemed us from the law. Jesus fulfilled the law.

Some take that to refer only to the ceremonial law. If that is the case, we are not saved. It is not from the ceremonial law that we have been saved, it is from the Mosaic Law. Ceremonial law did not condemn us, the Law of Moses condemned us. The book of Hebrews is clear, the Old Covenant is no longer relevant to us.

Remember, though, that Jeremiah and Hebrews teach that God's Law would be written on our hearts. We know what is right and wrong by the leading of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. And because we know God and have Him in our hearts, we keep His commandments...not as some kind of ritualistic behavior, but as an out-spewing of His Law of Love in us.

Notice that verse 2 does not say that others will know we are Christians by how we follow God's commandments. It says that we will know we are Christians by how we follow God's commandments.

Verse 3 - God's commandments are not grievous. They are joyful. They are fulfilling. They flow out of us from within.

Verse 4 - That which comes from God overcomes the world. Remember, the Gnostics sensed that the world is evil, but they reacted to its evil in an inappropriate way. John does not suggest that we do away with the world, but that we overcome it.

Verse 5- The only ones who can overcome the world are those who believe that Jesus really, truly is the actual Son of God.

Verses 6-8 - In a direct confrontation to the false teaching of the Gnostics, John proclaims that Jesus was physically born (water and blood). The Holy Spirit gives testimony in our hearts to the reality of Jesus. He also testifies to the physical nature of Jesus, who was 100% man and 100% God.

Verse 9 -In a court of law, man's testimony is accepted. John tells us that God's testimony is greater than man's. Men's testimony might contradict itself. God's never will.

Verse 10 - If you believe in the Son of God (another reference to Jesus' physicality), Jesus Christ, He lives in your heart. God gave testimony to His Son in the Old Testament Scriptures. He testifies to His Son today in the hearts of His people.

Verse 11 - God's testimony is that in Christ we are given eternal life, and that life is in Christ.

Verse 12 - You either have eternal life or you don't. There is no half-way. There is no "I guess so" or "I hope so." If the Holy Spirit is not testifying to your salvation, you are not saved. You need to repent of sin and turn in faith, trusting in and only in the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary. If you do not, you are dead in your sin.

Happy Birthday America! May Your Banner Always Wave!

1st 2nd and 3rd John Week 6

John 4:7-21

John has just finished a scathing indictment of the Gnostics' world view and revealed that their spiritualistic view of everything is actually a worldly philosophy. There was also something else missing from their world view: real love. And so, John sets out to define what is meant by real love.

Verse 7 - The Greek work for love here is the well known agape and its verb form agapao. As you know, this is Godly love. It bears no relationship to erotic love (eros), friendly, sometimes called brotherly love (phileo), or the love of family (storge). Agape is kind of love God exhibited toward us when he allowed Jesus to fulfill His own statement: Greater love has no man than this; that he would lay down his life for a friend.

John admonishes us to have agape love for one another. He proclaims that this kind of love can only come from God. And if we are born of God (that is: born again; saved) we know God.

Verse 8 - Those who do not demonstrate agape toward one another do not know God. God, in all of His being, in all of His intervention in history and in His giving of His only Son, is the very essence of love.

Verse 9 - Here John wraps agape up in one package. He proclaims that God's love was manifested in Jesus, whose act of agape at Calvary brings life.

This message would have been foreign, even threatening to the Gnostics. To them, love was an abstract concept, spiritual in such a way as to be ethereal and unreal.

Verse 10 - Agape originates with and by God. It is not that we loved God so much that He sent Christ as some sort of cosmic reward. It is that He loves us and sent Christ to die for our sin.

Verse 11 - Here is John's logic: if God loved us that much, we should then love each other in the same way, that is, we should be ready and willing to lay down our lives for one another. That's heavy duty!

Verses 12-13 - In John 4:24 this same John had written, "God is a spirit and those who worship Him bust worship Him in spirit and in truth." He reaffirms this truth in verse 12. His reference here is to God the Father. The way we know that we know God in Christ is to have God dwelling in us, which will result in us loving one another.

Verses 14-15 - To the Gnostics then and now John testifies that he and his compatriots have seen Jesus, whom God sent, in the flesh to be the Savior of the world. The Gnostics denied that Jesus was the Son of God. John says, "Oh, yes He is." And those who are willing to confess (agree with God) that truth have God living in them.

Verse 16 - John connects knowing and believing. He states the connection by reiterating that God is love and God's love is testified to by how we love one another.

Verses 17-18 - "Herein" is John's way of drawing his conclusion from what he has said. Agape love is perfect. It won't let you down, it won't let you go and it won't let you off. It is sufficient for the final judgement. When God looks at you, He will see you through the perfect, completed love of Christ.

You do not need to be afraid of love, you do not need to be afraid to love and you can be sure that fear of death and its consequences are taken care of by God and do not need to be feared.

Verse 19 - If Christ had not come, lived, died and risen from the dead, we would never have reached up for God's love. Israel tried to gain God's love by good behavior, but they never reached up to Him. In the final analysis, it was God who reached down to us first. Then and only then could we respond to Him with love.

Verses 20-21 - Agape love must be consistent. We cannot love God and mix it with hate. John's logic is that if we can't love our brothers in Christ, whom we have seen, we cannot possible love God, whom we have not seen.

Jesus' commandment was for us to love one another. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus told us to love God completely and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This sums up the entire law, according to Jesus.

All of this might have irritated the Gnostics, but it should fill us with joy and excitement.

Rightly Dividing 01

This begins a series of posts dealing with commonly misused and misapplied Bible verses.

We have many good Bible teachers and preachers in our churches. Sadly, we have many bad ones, too. Many Christians, pastors, leaders and laymen alike, treat Scripture as though it is a collection of proverbs. The book of Proverbs is a series of proverbs (though if properly understood it is the story of Godly growth), the rest of the Bible is not.

The trouble begins with context. For example, "Then I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me." (Matthew 25:45) This verse is often taken to mean that we should provide welfare for anybody in need. That is a misapplication of the verse.

Did you notice that Jesus describes the one of whom He speaks as "brothers of mine?" That identifies them as other Christians, not just generic poor, hungry, homeless, sick and imprisoned people.

Jesus has such intimacy with His followers that whatever is done to them is the same as doing it to Him.

You see, it is not true that "there is one interpretation, many applications" of Scripture verses. Taken out of context, Matthew 25:45 seems to speak of charity; hand-outs. But in context it speaks of His relationship to His own.

Applied this way the verse fits with and complements Acts 4:32, "All the believers were of one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had."

That verse is often misapplied to justify government entitlements; welfare. Sometimes it is used as an example of communism in the Bible. In truth, it has nothing to do with either. It is an expansion of Jesus' words about how Christians relate to Him and to one another.

To use a Bible verse generically, without knowing its context and relevance to the rest of the Bible is to commit, however innocently, a heresy. God spends a lot of time in Scripture warning against false teachers and their heresies.

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul laments that he cannot feed the church members the meat of the Word, but must confine himself to the surface "milk" of the Word.

It behooves us to dig deeper into the Word to understand its passages in terms of the chapter they are in, the book they are in, the testament they are in, the Covenant they represent and the Bible as a whole.

In other words, it makes absolutely no difference what a verse or passage "means to you." What is important is: what did God mean when He wrote it?

Let's learn to "rightly divide the Word of Truth." Teach our teachers, pastors and lay leaders to treat God's Word as it deserves to be treated and not like a series of parables to be applied in any way they see fit.