Intolerance of Sinners

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the ways Satan attacks us, using the teachings from the book of Revelation. He shares a personal experience with demonic forces and emphasizes that Satan often targets the weakest link in a group. He also discusses the seven churches of Asia Minor mentioned in Revelation, each with unique characteristics and challenges. Paul warns that churches must stay vigilant against losing their first love, which is Christ, to avoid falling into Satan’s traps.
➡ The text talks about the commendable endurance of a church in Ephesus, a place known for its immoral activities and worship of Diana. Despite the challenging environment, the church members didn’t tolerate evil or sin, and their strong faith had a significant impact on the local community, even causing a decrease in idol sales and a resulting uproar. The author encourages listeners to stay strong, keep their faith, and continue to make a positive difference in the world.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God His Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be Intolerance of Sinners. How does Satan attack us? Well, for the answer to that, I want you to turn to Revelation chapter 1.

You know, I had an interesting thing happen to me one time. I went into a room. I was called in to where a girl was filled with demons, and the demons all had different voices. They used her mouth and so forth to speak, but the voices were not hers, and it was amazing because there was a terrible thing going on in this room, and this girl had flipped over a desk and was slashing and smashing things around. And when I walked in the door all of a sudden, she hit the chair and just looked at me in a frenzied look and in a voice not her own, because I knew her own voice.

The voice said, Get him out. Not him. Get him out. My reaction to that was I was excited, because I was glad those demons knew whose side I was on. They know. Believe me, they know me. And they know this church, and they know what God is doing here, and they’ll try to stop it. And the way they’ll stop it or try to stop it is through you, because a church is only a collection of links like a chain and only as strong as its weakest one. Satan is going to attack.

How does he attack? I believe the Lord shows us in the letters of Revelation 2 and 3. I believe in the letters to the churches, the seven churches of Asia Minor, the first of which is Ephesus, and then the others that were literally born out of the Ephesian church, the other six being also in Asia Minor. I believe the Lord gives us insight into how Satan attacks the church, and at least once every year or so, I feel compelled to warn our church in this regard. Now let’s set the scene by looking at Revelation chapter 1 and verse 9.

John the beloved Apostle is on the isle of Patmos. He was in exile for his faith, and here it is that God gives him marvellous visions, and in these visions he sees what God wants to reveal about the church. Now you’ll notice in verse 10, John says, I was in the Spirit, and by that I think he means that he is in a position to receive revelation from the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. That would be on a Sunday. And I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou ceased write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia, Asia Minor, unto Ephesus, unto Smyrna, unto Pergamum, unto Thyatira, unto Sardis, unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

Now the Lord has a word for these seven churches. Most interestingly, these are seven historical, actual, real churches. But they are also prototypes of churches that exist in all periods of church history, because each of them has a unique characteristic to which the Lord speaks. And there are churches in every age, including today, that could be classified as Ephesian churches, or Smyrna churches, or Pergamum churches, or Thyatira, or Sardis, or Philadelphia, or Laodicean churches. And so they are not just historical churches, though they are that, but they present to us a prototype for other periods of history.

Now notice the scene in verse 12. I turn to see the voice that spoke to me, and being turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. What are the seven golden lampstands? Verse 20 tells you at the end, the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So here is John’s vision. He sees a lampstand which is symbolic of each of the churches, and the lamp is blazing, it’s lit, and the church is to be a light in the world, isn’t it? It’s to be the place that lights up the darkness. And so there they are, the seven churches of Asia Minor, each represented by a lampstand, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man.

This is Jesus Christ, and he’s moving in his church, he’s moving through the church, and he’s clothed with a garment down to the foot. By the way, garments like that were worn by priests, prophets, and kings, and so the consummation of all of those elements in Christ he was girded about his middle with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like wool as white as snow, speaking of his holiness and his purity, and his eyes were like a flame of fire, searching and penetrating. So here is the Lord, and we see him in his kingly priestly prophetic garb, and we see him with white so that he symbolizes purity, and then his eyes searching, penetrating, as he evaluates the church.

And his feet like fine bronze, as if they burned in a furnace. Because he has to judge his church sometimes. Peter even said it. Judgment must begin at the house of God. And we see also that his voice is like the sound of many waters, a great commanding authoritative voice. He had in his right hand seven stars. What are they? Verse 20 tells you. The seven stars in the middle of the voice are the angels or the ministers of the seven churches. And so in his hand are the ministers, and he moves among the churches, evaluating, searching, penetrating, examining the churches, getting ready to write the seven letters.

His evaluation is in chapter one. The result is in chapter two and three. And so he begins. John does with the letters in chapter two. And what does the Lord say to these churches? Well beloved, let me tell you. These are seven absolutely incredible letters. Five of them, mark it, are warnings. To two of the churches, there is no warning. To the church at Smyrna in Philadelphia, apparently there needed to be no warning. The church at Smyrna was the persecuted church. The church at Philadelphia was the evangelizing, aggressive, soul-winning church. Seems to me that those two things are wonderful preservatives.

When a church is persecuted, it tends to maintain its purity, because all of the impurity drops out. You’re not about to identify with an outfit where you’re going to get persecuted unless you’re pretty serious. Right? So persecution has a way of purifying, and so does evangelism, because as long as your heart is toward the world, and as long as you’re aggressively reaching the lost, you tend to be going outward rather than ingrown. And the Philadelphia church, the church with the open door, was a blessed church, and the Smyrna church, the church that was being rained on by the fires of the opposition, was a blessed church.

But the other five stood in need of deep warnings. And there’s a progression to the five warnings. They start at what seems a very, a very light kind of situation, and they become so oppressive as to finally become apostate and a church which is utterly no church at all. There’s a descending thing that we’ve seen happen in many churches throughout history. So what do we need to be warned about? Let’s look and see. First of all, the thing that hit the church at Ephesus. They left their first love. They left their first love.

This is enough to make a message all on its own. Notice verse 1. Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things saith he that holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. This is the son of man. This is Jesus Christ writing to his own church. This isn’t somebody’s opinion. This is Christ. And he says in verse 2 to them, I know thy works. And man, it was a fabulous story in Ephesus. It was an incredible history there. How they had literally thrown a city into confusion and chaos.

They had overturned a system of religion. That little group of believers that started out in the midst as if they were an island of purity in a sea of wretchedness had been able to so infiltrate and purify parts of that city that they brought to a halt some of the most complex systems of religion at that time. That little group of people had an incredible beginning and who could think of a better one to begin it than Paul. And who could think of more wonderful pastors than Apollos, who was the greatest proclaimer of the word of God and oratorical ability perhaps that ever lived.

And better than Timothy, who was one who would teach them the same things in the same way Paul did. They had those people for their leaders. And they were a working church. I know your coposs. He says your hard work to the point of sweat. You really go after it. You’re involved, your labor, your patience. You have hoopomone. You are able to endure through the tough times. And man, being in Ephesus wasn’t an easy place. The center of the worship of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world, the temple was an incredible mess.

There were scores of eunuchs, thousands of priestess prostitutes, herald singers, flautists, and on and on just creating a hysteria of music and orgy and drunkenness and frenzy and sexual mutilation. So that Heraclitus said that the morals of the people of that temple were less than that of animals. That the preaching of Paul had so affected all of that that the idle sales dropped off and a riot resulted. They were a tremendous church. They had endurance in the midst of a tough place. Really tough. And he says not only that, but you can’t bear them that are evil.

You can’t handle those that are evil, he says. You’re dealing with sin. You don’t tolerate sin for a minute. When somebody comes along and they’re doing evil, you deal with that. You are intolerant of sinners. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of intolerance of sinners. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].