A Warning to This Church

Selected Scriptures

     Recent months in my personal study of the Word of God I have studied greatly concerning the Church in preparation for a book which I have written, which cost a lot of time and investment of my own study.  I went over the Church and over it and over it and over it and what the Church should be.  One thing kept coming to my mind as I studied.  And that was the tremendous importance of warning the Church.  How the Apostle Paul said, "That I have not ceased for the space of three years, both night and day, to warn you."  And I thought to myself that if there is such a tremendous concern over warning and that if Paul, as he said, knew that there would be grievous wolves enter in, not sparing the flock then the church stands in need of not only exhortation.  And not only challenge, and not only information but the Church stands in a serious need of warning. 

     And so God laid that on my heart and it rested there for a long time.  And then I began to study and to think and to pursue some things.  And the Spirit of God has finally brought me to this moment this morning when I want to give a warning to Grace Church.  And I give this, not only out of the involvement of study in the Word of God, but right out of the deepest recesses of my heart.  Which is so inextricably wound up together with what Grace Church is really all about, and my own personal and deep love for the Lord Jesus Christ, and the desire for His glory.  So what I am saying this morning, I trust and pray God will speak to your hearts, not only today, but I'm almost tempted to say that maybe we ought to make everybody in this church listen to it again, every six months till Jesus comes.  Not because it's such a great sermon, because it isn't, but just because the principles that we'll be sharing are the only principles that will ever guarantee that this church will succeed in being the church that Jesus wants it to be until He comes.

     And there are many churches far greater than this that have long since passed along the wayside and over which God has written one word, "Ichabod, the glory has departed."  It can happen.  Recently in a large city a man took me to a church, it happened to be a Baptist church.  That's immaterial, it just did.  And it was the big church, the largest one in the city, the first church.  And the man said it seats 2,500 and they have all these facilities.  And I said, "That's great.  How many people go there?"  And the man said, "50."  And I saw again, how Satan moves in and destroys what God has begun to build and then our Lord Christ Himself, sweeps into a church with judgment, with the feet of burnished brass and stomps out the judgment on that church and obliterates it.

     And I, again, was reminded of the importance of reminding you that just such a thing could happen to Grace Community Church.  And you need to be warned.  To begin with, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 10 with me for a moment.  And we know that Satan is active.  Believe me, people, in the last 48 hours of my life I have been in hand-to-hand combat with Satan, with demons, in the last month and within the last six months of my ministry to an extent that I have never even realized before.  And even just in this very hour this morning, I've been dealing with a conflict of God and Satan in the lives of individuals. 

     Now I am aware of something as I take you to Daniel chapter 10 and I am reminded of it in Daniel 10 and that is this.  Wherever God begins to move, count on it, Satan will move in counter attack.  That is inevitable.  That will always happen.  There is not a sometime thing to that statement.  It is always true.  Whenever God begins to move, Satan moves in counter attack.  Now I don't care if you're talking about the human level, the natural level or the supernatural level.  God is in a conflict with Satan even in the air.  In Jude chapter 9, you know that the Devil and Michael had a fight over the body of Moses.  Here was a conflict between angels.

     Now when you come to Daniel chapter 10, Daniel sees an angel.  And this is an angel of extremely high rank and that is indicated because of the description of him in verse 6 of chapter 10, and verse 5 gives a little bit of it.  But verse 6 gives us a picture of a fantastic being.  And there are some who would say that this, as compared with 8:16 would be a reference to Gabriel.  So you're talking about a high ranking angel in God's angelic host.  So Daniel was seeing this angel Gabriel.  Now we pick it up in verse 10, "Now behold a hand touched me."  And here Daniel is lying flat on the ground according to verse 9, "And the angel reaches down and touches me.  It set me upon my knees and upon my the palms of my hands."  The literal Hebrew is that he began to reel back and forth on his knees.

     And he said to me, "Oh Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee and stand upright for unto thee am I now sent."  This angel is from God.  God has dispersed this angel, to carry out the request of Daniel.  And it has reference to the release of Israel, of course.  And so he is sending this angel.  And Daniel says, "And when I heard this word unto me, I stood trembling.  And then he said unto me, Fear not Daniel, for from the first day thou didst set thy heart to understand and chasten thyself before thy God.  Thy words were heard and I have come for thy words."  In other words, the angel said, "God heard you praying Daniel.  And because of the words of your prayer, God sent me to carry out the answer."  God uses angels for the disposition of his answers in prayer. 

     And so God sends this angel, perhaps Gabriel, to come down and carry out this ministry in relation to Israel.  Verse 13, "But," and here's the interesting point, "the Prince of Kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days."  Now this angel, even great an angel, as high a ranking angel as Gabriel, God hung up in space by this individual called the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia.  Now this is a demon.  All of the god's of the nations are demons and you can read a lot in the Old Testament about the power behind certain nations being demonic power.  A demon actually controlled the leadership of Persia.  And he dominated the Persian government.  Later on if you go to verse 20, you'll find that a demon also dominates Greece.  The Prince of Greece is another demon. 

     And so God sends this angel and he is withstood.  The angel of course would be sent to release Israel and the demon of Persia would desire to hold them captive.  And so there's a conflict going on.  And 21 days this demon detains Gabriel, if it be indeed Gabriel.  But here comes the champion angel, the warrior angel.  But, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me.  God dispatched Michael and said, "Get down there and help that other angel."  Now isn't that interesting.  There we see conflict between demons and holy angels on a special level, a spiritual world level.  You can go over the Revelation Chapter 12, and you don't need to at this point, but in your mind.  And you'll find, beginning in verse 7, the Bible says, "And there was war in heaven.  Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels, I guess Satan.  And so when we're talking about conflict, even at the highest level, the supernatural world, when God moves to do something, Satan moves to stop what he's dong.  And there's a conflict going on in space among holy angels and demons. 

     Now if this be true on a supernatural level, let us not be foolish enough to think it's not true on a natural level.  Satan is the prince of this world.  Satan is the one who controls the system.  If the demon is behind Persia and another demon is behind Greece, he is behind the whole thing.  And so Satan is active in the world and this is obvious to any Christian who begins to move out for God.  To illustrate this, merely from a biblical context, so that we fit it in the right context take the book of 1 Peter.  For just a moment in memory; let's think of it because we're not going to look at anything specific, really.  But in the book of 1 Peter you have the outline in graphic form for really what amounts to Christian growth and fruitful ministry.  Peter lays it on when he says, "First it begins, you know in the first chapter with a solid salvation.  You are not redeemed with comfortable things, silver and gold, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, the precious blood of Christ.  He says, "Really, reckon your salvation.  Start with a solid salvation.  Then a commitment to the word as babes desire the ______ milk of the word."  Then he goes from there and he talks about a total dedication to serve Christ if you're a chosen generation of holy priesthood.  He moves through the books, giving all the ingredients for commitment.  Then he says, "Be a pure testimony to the world."  You know, speak so that you put the silence the ignorance of foolish men.  Be a testimony, obey the government.  Submit all these things can make you an aggressive, positive, fruitful minister in the world. 

     And then he moves from there and says you need to be willing to suffer.  And then he goes and says you need proper relationships with others.  Even your husband wife thing, all these things are wrapped up.  He goes on from there to talk about the priority of love and the priority of prayer.  He wraps it up by talking about humility and trust.  And goes all through this in the beginning of chapter 5 and it's so good and you feel so strong.  And all of a sudden you come to chapter 5 and bang, you run smack into 5, 8 and 9 and this is what it says, "Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, who resist steadfast in the faith."  You say, "What's your point?"  My point is this, if a Christian ever follows the pattern of Peter, it is inevitable that it he will have to be sober and vigilant because Satan will move right in. 

     James said this, "Submit yourselves to God."  And then James knew what would happen immediately and in the same breath said, "Resist," what?  "The devil."  Because as soon as a believer submits to God in the fullest sense, whammo, Satan moves in to destroy.  And he has all different approaches.  Now if it's true on a supernatural level that the conflict exists and if it's also true on a personal level the conflict exists then I believe that it's true at the level of the church.  I believe that if a church begins to grow, Satan begins to work against it.  And I hope these aren't words, people, I hope you understand what I'm talking about is critically serious. 

     And I think the most shocking thing that ever happened to me in my life, among some things that have been very shocking, but the most shocking thing that has ever happened to me when I encountered a person that was full of demons.  I walked into the room knowing this was the situation because I had been forewarned and I was asked to come and pray and see what God would do.  And I came in the door and this person attacked me and these demons started to speak and they knew me.  Now that was a shock.  I mean I knew there was a demon world but I didn't know they knew me.  And they did not like me.  That part I enjoyed immensely.  There were two things that I really enjoyed about that opportunity.  One was that they hated me and that meant that I had at least made enough of a dent in the demonic world to be despised.  The second thing was that when it was all over, they fled and I was still there.  And I praised God for that.  They are no threat to me or to any believer who stands on the truths of Scripture.

     But I'll tell you the shock of it was that Satan knew me.  And they knew exactly who I was and endeavored to attack me through this person.  And you know I began to think, "You know, Satan must know Grace Church very, very well."  And then I began to think, "And he's fighting against us very hard, very hard."  When we are in a conflict it seems incessible with Satan.  And so far we have seen victory.  But then I began to think and apply this to my mind in terms of what I knew about warning the church and I was brought to this place this morning to say to you, "People, I warn you.  We cannot, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, 'We cannot be ignorant of Satan's devices least he should get an advantage of us."  Better churches by far than this, with better pastors by far than this have gone down the drain; been destroyed by the power of Satan.  And we need to be warned. 

     Now so vulnerable is the church to the blistering attacks of Satan and to his subtleties that our Lord Jesus Christ wrote seven special letters to the churches.  They are contained in Revelation 2 and 3 and I want you to look at them in your Bibles.  And what I'm going to say to you this morning is going to be as strong as I can say it and as uncompromising as I can say it.  Because, beloved, I love you with all my heart, but I love Jesus Christ more and I at this point in my own life, die for the purity of His church.  So what I say I say out of a heart of love both to you and to our Lord. 

     Now the church stands in need of some special warning and the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 are just that.  Two of the seven need no warning because they are positively beautiful churches.  Everything is in order and you know what churches they were?  The little Smyrna church.  And you know why it was such a good church?  It was under persecution and persecution purifies the church.  And the other really good church was Philadelphia.  And Philadelphia was a pure church because it was totally lost in winning others to Christ, among other great qualities.  But the church that is under the attack of the world an the church that is confronting the world with the Gospel, that indicates there will be an attack as well, are the churches that needed no warning.  All five of the other churches have specific warning from Christ.

     Now let me say this by way of introduction.  These seven letters were to seven actually churches.  They did exist in which times John had the visions and wrote the words of our Lord.  But more than that, they are representative of every type of church.  You can take every type of church there is and you can fit them into one of these slots.  In fact you could probably find in each church some of each kind of these members.  You could probably find in our church some Laodiceans and some Philadelphians and some Ephesians and some of the others.  But basically here what we have is how the church will go.  We have a pattern of church history here.  In fact there may be a sense in which this is the flow of church history going from one to the next.  But I really think what you have here in the most dominant scene is the seven kinds of churches that there are and five of them are in need of warning.  And so we need to stand warned today. 

     Look at chapter 1 verse 11.  John sees Jesus and he hears him say, "I am Alpha and Omega.  The first and the last and what thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea."  He says I want to send seven letters to my churches.  And the vision that he has then is a beautiful one.  It is the vision of Christ moving among the churches, ministering.  Verse 12, "And I turned to see the voice that spoke to me and being turned I saw seven golden lamp stands."  Representing the churches, of course.  "And in the midst of seven lamp stands, one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girted about the breast with a golden girdle."  Of course garments like that were worn by three types of people, prophets, priests and kings.  And there's Christ in his three-fold ministry.  And he's moving among the church.  "His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow."  And there's his purity.  "And his eyes like a flame of fire," searching penetrating exposure, "and his feet like fine bronze as if they burned in a furnace."  The crushing blows of judgment.  "And his voice like the sound of many waters," as He spoke judgment.  "In his right hand seven stars," these are the ministers of angels of the churches, "and out of his mouth a sharp, two edged sword."  He's moving among a church, beloved, in judgment.  He's moving among his church, judging and cleaning with the Word.  You see as He's trimming the lamps of his church.  Verse 20 says, "The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in his right hand and the seven golden lamp stands.  And the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lamp stands which you saw are the seven churches." 

     So, here's Christ and Christ is moving within the church.  And as he moves about in the church he is judging the church.  He is searching; he is penetrating with his eyes to see the fatal flaw that may be at any point visible to Him in the church.  And it's always visible.  Five of these churches were exposed.  And beloved this morning I want to expose us to these five, sad, tragic things that Satan does to destroy the church.  And I think in my heart that you can put every destructive angel of Satan into these five areas.  If we know these five we shall not be ignorant of his devices.

     Now let me say this, we are blessed here at Grace Community Church.  We are blessed in so many ways.  WE have been blessed by spiritual growth.  Many of you have matured in the Lord and what a joy and a blessing you are in our hearts.  And what a productive life you have in the lives of other people.  You are productive and you are maturing and you are growing and we praise God.  And you're loving His Word and all of these things.  And then we see numerical growth.  Numerical growth stagers our ability to even imagine what God might have done.  We're seeing souls won to Christ.  We're seeing individuals reproducing.  We're seeing discipling and follow up that is done fruitfully.  We're seeing, I think, a love among Christians in certain areas that is beautiful and there's caring going on and all that is needful in that dimension.  And we're seeing a growing and aggressive interest in world missions as we extend ourselves. 

     And from an angle of theology, we stand, you know for the real rudiments of the faith, don't we here?  I mean we stand uncompromising for the authenticity of the scripture, it's verbal _____ inspiration.  We are not interested in getting involved with people who do not believe and are not committed to that.  We believe in the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Deity of God the Father, the Deity of the Spirit of God, their equal personality and yet their oneness.  We stand for the virgin birth of Christ, His sinless life, His bodily resurrection, His bodily visible second coming.  We stand for all these things. 

     We preach salvation plus nothing.  We preach salvation by faith and nothing.  We believe in the principles of discipleship.  We believe in the saints doing the work of the ministry.  We try with all of our hearts to come to the New Testament patterns of the church.  But, beloved, let me say this, this church has never been in more danger than it is right now.  And I mean that.  And I say that because this church has never grown like it is now.  And just as we are growing, so in proportion is Satan actively and aggressively counteracting what we're trying to do.  Believe me, Satan is against us, he hates us and he wants to destroy us.  And the most stupid thing we could do, the most fatal thing we could do is to be content.  To be smug, to be indifferent, to be non-vigilant, to sort of wallow in some kind of cold, self-satisfied orthodoxy, you know?  And be non-vigilant while the enemy seeps in and devours. 

     You know most of the 330,000 churches in America were started with a fresh and a warm commitment to Jesus Christ.  And most of them now don't even belong to Jesus Christ, they belong to Satan.  We have here a tremendous trust.  Our men met together and are talking about building another auditorium, that's apparent why.  We've been in this only a year and look at us, in both services.  And they were talking about building an auditorium to seat 2,500 with an expansion possibility to 4,000 because we don't know where God's going in the future with this thing. 

     And I went home after thinking about that and I spent a little bit of time in prayer with the Lord and I faced a very sobering question.  And it's this, if we're talking about building more buildings and if we're talking about making commitments to more missionaries, and we're talking about getting more involved in all these various things it's going to take commitment from us.  Aren't we also willing to guarantee that this building we build and this involvement we move into will always be a place where Jesus Christ is glorified until he comes again?  Because, people, there have been a lot of times when Christians have made that commitment and just haven't kept it.  There are churches all over America where that commitment came and all they've got is a stone monument to a man or a stone monument to a board.  Or a stone monument who was wealthy enough and wanted to put up a memorial and they've got nothing that even smacks of the spirit of God's power. 

     And I say to you if we are not interested in committing our lives to the future of this church until Jesus comes that it purely proclaim the unsearchable riches of the Scriptures without compromise then I'm not interested in putting another nickel into this church.  I don't know if I'm interesting to putting another day in it.  And I mean that.  I'm not interested in temporary activities.  I'm interested in what Paul said to the Ephesians.  He said, "Having done all," to what, "stand."  There are a lot of churches that have done it all but when the smoke clears they went down the drain.  They were active at one time.  That's sad.  Is Grace Church just to become another monument, just another stone quarry on the corner?  Or are we to be a Christ exalting, Bible believing, uncompromising center for growth and evangelism to the very day that Jesus comes.  I pray God we are.  The day comes the Lord may take me or move me somewhere in his providence.  Are you prepared to make the commitment of your heart to maintain the purity of this church at all costs? 

     You are the key and may it go on record, from this day, March 18, 1973 that you have been warned by our Lord Christ Himself.  That Satan wants to damn this church.  Believe me these are timeless warnings, let us hear them.  The first thing that Satan uses to destroy the church is the loss of first love.  The loss of first love, chapter 2.  "Under the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things set thee that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden lamp stands; here is what he says to Ephesus.  'I know your works and your labor."  And the word is kappas, sweat, they really sweat, they worked, they labored.  And that's a commendable thing.  Most Christians, their lifetime of labor added together wouldn't exhaust a butterfly.  They were really working.  That most of us don't know the meaning of kappas, toil and labor for the cause of Christ.  And I know your patience.  You know they had hupomonas, steadfast endurance against hardships.  And you can't bear them that are evil.  Boy they were solid.  They didn't like sin and they didn't tolerate sin.  Not only that they were strong in doctrine.  You tried them who say they are apostles and are not; you found them liars.  They exposed false prophets. 

     Boy, that's a strong church.  There's a church that works hard, they sweat and they labor and they endure hardship and they can't stand sin and they try false teachers and they deal with false doctrine.  There's a doctrinally strong church.  You know who founded that church?  Who founded it?  Paul.  Who could chose anybody in the whole universe of history, who would you chose?  Paul.  Man they had a beginning like no beginning.  Paul came into town and He started preaching and flipped Ephesus on it's ear.  Ephesus was a very pagan city.  The temple of Diana and Artemas, the Seven Wonders of the World was there.  And there was all these eunuchs and thousands of priests, prostitutes that plied their trade under the guise of religion.  And old Paul came in there and he started teaching, read about it in Acts 19, and he absolutely blitzed that city.  The trade of the sale of idols fell off so much that a riot started.  They tried to kill him.  Here huddled in the middle of that place were these little believers. 

     And Paul stayed there really he was just; he would never even got the church together for the first two years.  He was either in the synagogue or in the House of Toranas for a couple of years.  Teaching and disputing and going over the gospel and people were getting saved and miracles were happening and Ephesus was going completely in two directions.  And that little church was pure and that little church was solid.  You know when Paul left they got another pastor that wasn't half-bad, Timothy.  And if that wasn't enough they got Ecola and Pricilla, when that didn't do it they got that golden voiced orator of the early church.  Apollos himself came there and taught them.  I mean you talk about a line of good teachers.  That church didn't suffer from the lack of having good leadership.  The best that God had He gave to Ephesus. 

     People always sit back and say, "Well, we've got a Bible teacher at our church, we're alright."  Don't kid yourself.  They had Paul, Timothy, Ecola, Pricilla and Apollos.  That's the ranking staff of the New Testament, friends, in terms of communicating the truth.  In the middle of that city where people were worshiping in a kind of hysterical frenzy where they mutilated their bodies sexually in a worship of Diana.  And _______ said they were worse than animals because animals didn't even mutilate themselves.  It was a sick place.  And huddled in the middle of it was this little ball of vitality for Jesus Christ that Paul was whipping up that was just really spinning people around and around as they touched their lives for Christ.

     And it was a great place when Paul was there.  Things were really moving and God was blessing.  And you see, they had four things that every great church has: service, steadfastness, suppression of evil, and strong doctrine.  And you come to verse 3, it says, "And hast borne", you've endured, it's been rough.  "And hast patience," he endured patiently, "and for My name's sake you worked."  They didn't even have a selfish motive.  They worked for the glory of God; they had the right motive: glory of God.  "And you didn't faint," you didn't get tired.  You say, "Man, that's a good church.  I wish Grace Church was like that."  I think we are a little bit like that; I think we're a little bit like that.  I think a lot of you work and you've been patient.  You've endured.  You're faithful.  I think we know sound doctrine.  I think we stand on it.  I think there are many of us who are concerned with dealing with sin.  I think a lot of those things to be true of us. 

Bang!  Look at verse 4.  And I imagine when they read this thing in Ephesus, it hit like a thunderbolt.  "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast," what?  "Left thy first love."  Oh!  That's just hits ... that just breaks your heart.  You say, "All that good."  And then He says, "I have something against you.  You've left your first love."  You know what was happening there?  They were falling more in love with their orthodoxy than they were with their Christ, you see.  They were so happy with what they were that they got their eyes off of Him, onto their church.  Well, if you ever start loving Grace Church more than you love Jesus Christ, you're in bad shape.

     You know, love is the basis of all kinds of ministry that is fruitful.  We don't want to become mechanical and have our orthodoxy some kind of strawband that we lift up in front of everybody.  You know, when Jesus confronted Peter at the close of the gospel of John in chapter 21, He said to him three times, "Do you love Me," didn't He?  "You love Me?"  Peter says, "I like you a lot."  He couldn't say he loved Him in the fullest sense ogupay because he'd blown it so many times; he didn't want to be a hypocrite.  Jesus says again, "Do you love Me?"  And he says, "Well, I like you a lot."  Jesus says to him, and this really hurt him, He says, "Peter, I'm not even sure you like Me a lot."  Peter says, "Lord, You know everything.  You know I like You a lot."  Jesus says, "All right.  Feed my sheep." 

     On what basis did Jesus commission Peter to do his job?  On the basis that he what?  That he loved Him.  You're not good to the service of God if all it is is cold mechanical function.  Have you lost your love for Jesus Christ?  Have you gotten sidetracked onto something else?  What you're doing is cranking out some kind of activity but it doesn't any of the energy that love of Christ brings to it, see.  An old Ephesus missed the one thing that was so important. 

It was one of the best churches I've ever seen; it had everything.  Everything!  And the Lord looked, and He saw, and His eyes penetrated to a thought that He hit right on the head: you left your first love.  Consciously you turned away and you walked away from it.  Those days of the hot-hearts, you know, the passion had turned into cold orthodoxy and the service of a performance.  They just went through the motions, all orthodox and loveless.  You know, people have told me many times.  They said, "John.  Well, your church is exciting and God's blessing.  But it's the honeymoon and it'll end and everything will cool down."  The days it does, that's the day that I'm going to get down on my knees before God and say, "What happened to me?"

     It cooled down in Ephesus.  You know there wasn't any great scandal.  I mean the pastor didn't run off with some woman.  Three people didn't rip the church into three sections.  There wasn't any organizational collapse.  You know what happened?  The innerspring of love dried up and it became mechanical orthodoxy.  The thrill was gone.  The enthusiasm was gone.  Let me ask you something beloved, you're Grace Church, aren't you?  You're it.  It's not some ethereal building on a corner in Panorama City; you're it.  And so if Grace Church loses first love it's only because you did and I did.  I'm not talking about some kind of a foggy concept called a church; I'm talking about you. 

Let me ask you this: Is it