Word of Salvation – Vol.41 No.20 – May 1996

 

The Church That Listens To The Shepherd’s Voice

 

Sermon by Rev. P. Kossen on Revelation 3:22

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

This will be the last of this series of sermons on the letters to the churches.  And when I began, I said that these letters were maybe the most direct way in which the Risen Lord addresses the church today.  Each one of these were personal letters from the Lord Jesus to us.  In each of them, He touches upon issues and elements, which are also present in the life of our church here in __________!

And again, I don’t know how to stress enough the importance of these seven letters.  Maybe I do so again by reminding you of the area of the world where these seven churches were.  They were in Asia Minor, in that country we now know as Turkey.  It has a population of 60 million people.  They are Muslim.  Completely closed to the Gospel.  And the church in Turkey is very small and finds it very hard.  In many of these places where the church once stood, the lampstand has been removed.

And this shows us the urgency, today, of listening to what the Spirit of Christ says to the churches.  The errors which He addresses in these letters are errors which, if they are not addressed, lead to eternal destruction.

And the question these letters bring to ask us is, “Are we a light bearer?  Are we faithful to our Lord?”  In dead Sardis, and lukewarm Laodicea, the light was nearly gone.  In loveless Ephesus, the light was rapidly being extinguished.

In Pergamum and Thyatira, it was still shining, but not as brightly as it should.  And only in Smyrna and Philadelphia was the light still shining brightly.  But what about us?  In the middle of the world are we, as church, as individuals, serving Christ faithfully, lovingly, and loyally?

When you look at these seven letters as a whole, you see that their message is very clear.  Very clear indeed.

1. The Message to the Churches.

The Lord doesn’t look at externals, at buildings, at programmes, at reputations.  What the Lord looks for in His Church is that it follows Him.  One of the most beautiful images in Scripture is that the Lord is our Shepherd, and we are His sheep.  And all that He wants is that we love Him with all our hearts, and that we follow Him with all our hearts.  And that we follow Him and listen to Him in every part of our lives.  That we would be willing to suffer for being His followers.  Yes, that we would be willing to die for being His followers.  Yes, that Christ Himself is more important to us than our own lives.

And you see this come out in the different ways in which He warns His Church.  The first warning was against Ephesus which had lost its first love.  They were still following Him, but their motive wasn’t love.  His warning against Sardis was just as strong.  “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”  They had the framework of religion.  But they didn’t have that living relationship with the Shepherd who was leading them.  And then the warning against Laodicea, which was lukewarm.  Again, they had the framework of religion.  But their heart wasn’t involved in following Christ.  They had no zeal, no fire, no enthusiasm, no eagerness.  They were half-hearted and cold.

And then there were the warnings against Pergamum and Thyatira.  They were faithful in many ways, but they didn’t follow Him exclusively.  They tolerated worldliness.  They tolerated people in the church who followed evil practices.  They tolerated false teachers in their midst.  Maybe they didn’t do these things themselves.  But they tolerated them.  Their zeal for the honour of Christ was not so strong that they rejected everything which went against Him.

And with these warnings again, you see it quite clearly, Christ wants whole hearted loving devotion to Him, a people who love Him so much, that they would rather die than go against Him in any way.  Rather die, than tolerate evil in any form.

And that is why I have said over and over, these letters are so important for us.  Because in each of these areas, we fail.  We fall so far short of that wholehearted commitment.  Each time we need to come before Him who walks among the lampstands; and listen to His voice calling us back to Himself; and respond to that voice; and return to Him with all our hearts.  And it is by being willing to listen to the Master’s voice, and returning to Him every time again, that the lampstand remains and the light keeps on shining.

And so, the only reason a lampstand is ever removed is because a church stops listening to the Master’s voice, as He leads them in the narrow path which leads to life eternal.

And again I say it, brothers and sisters, the Shepherds voice is clear.  We have seen that as we looked at these seven letters.  His voice comes through so clearly as He directs His message straight towards us.  But that leads us to a second question.  If His voice is so clear, why is it that the lampstand has been removed in so many places?  Why have so many churches still gone astray?  We see the evidence of that in our own country, as well as in many places around the world.  Churches which, one generation ago, were strong, have now no longer the right to be called the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  If the Master’s voice is so clear, why is this so?

2. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

And we find the reason for this, in our text today, a text which has occurred in every one of the seven letters, some of the most often used words of Jesus in the Bible: “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  And there are several things the Lord says through this.  The first is that…..

a)  Not everyone has an ear to hear.

Now this is a sad fact which finds illustration all too easily in family life.  There have been advertisements recently on television showing parents trying to talk to their children on drugs, and the children keep turning their back.  And the parent gives up in frustration saying, “Have you even heard a word of what I’m saying?”  And that’s not a far out illustration.  Many are the homes where this has happened, where this is happening, where young people despise and reject the advice of their parents, and where the parents feel totally helpless, since the children don’t hear what they are saying.

And we don’t have to look at our generation only, the same was there when we were growing up, maybe we were like that, too, when we didn’t want to listen to what our parents were saying.  That streak of rebelliousness and pride and individualism runs through the whole of Adam’s race.

Now, when we look at that example, we ask, why don’t these children hear what the parents are saying?  Well they hear it alright, they have ears to hear, but they don’t have hearts to hear.  Put it simply, they don’t want to listen.

Now it is exactly the same thing Jesus talks about.  That streak of rebelliousness which is born into our children, is part of our sinful human nature.  We don’t want to listen to authority.  It begins by striking out at parents.  And teachers.  But as we get older we realise it is that same rebelliousness which doesn’t want to listen to God either.  At heart, in our old nature, we are all fiercely independent, and proud, and self-centred; and we want the authority to do it our way.

And so we can even sit in church, like a son sits at his father’s table, and even in church, we can hear with our ears and yet, not with our hearts.  We hear what He is saying, but deep down, we don’t want to hear.  Deep down, we still want that authority “to do it our way.”

We see one example of that in Old Testament Israel.  They heard what the prophets said, but they hardened their hearts against the message.  They didn’t humble themselves under the Word of God.  And eventually God gave them up to the hardness of their hearts and said, “If you insist, do it your way.”

We see it again in 2Thessalonians 2:10.  Paul is talking there about those who are deceived by Satan.  And he asks, “Why are they deceived, why are they perishing?” And he answers, “They perish because they refused to love the truth, and so be saved.”  That’s a very powerful statement.  They perish, not because they did not hear the truth, not because they did not know the truth, but because they did not love the truth.  They heard, but they did not really want to hear.  Like the son who hears what his father says, but isn’t really interested too much.

And, brothers and sisters, this, for us, is a very searching message.  I hear what the Lord is saying about love, and lukewarmness, and formalism, and whole-hearted service.  I hear it.  But am I really interested in putting my life under that message?  Do I really want to hear it?  In the words of Thessalonians: Do I love the truth?  Do I really want the pain and the upheaval, to re-organise my life according to what Jesus might say?

And that is a question I need to ask myself very seriously.  Because, the very fact that the lampstand has been removed from so many places is evidence of the fact that many followers of Christ in the past have failed to count the cost of following Jesus.  And many today, too, fail to count the cost of what it means to be under the authority of Jesus the Lord.

So that’s the first thing.  Not everyone has an ear to hear.  But there is also the second implication, and that is…..

b)  That His sheep do hear His voice.

Jesus says that in John 10, in the picture of the Good Shepherd.  “The watchman opens the gate for the shepherd of the sheep.  And the sheep listen to His voice.  He calls His own sheep by name, and leads them out.  When He has brought out all His own, he goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him, because they know His voice.  But they will never follow a stranger.  In fact, they will run away from him, because they do not recognise a strangers voice.”

That’s a very beautiful illustration.  Because here in the seven letters to the churches we are hearing the Shepherd’s voice.  He is going ahead of us.  And, as I said before, He is speaking to us in a very direct way.  Each one of these letters is a personal letter from the Shepherd to the sheep.  In each one He touches on issues and elements which also threaten us along the way.  But by His voice He keeps us on the small and narrow way which leads to life eternal.  Compare those words: “He who has an ear, let him hear,” from Revelation, and “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.  They will listen to my voice,” from the Gospel.

Brothers and sisters, the Shepherd’s voice speaking to us in a voice of love.  This way, my children, this way..!.  Watch that stone.  Watch that cliff.  Follow me.  May we not be like the children of Israel who hardened their hearts to the Shepherd’s voice.  But may the Lord always work that desire in our hearts to come before our glorified Lord and Saviour, to humble ourselves under Him, and to listen to what His Spirit says to our church.

And, listening to Him, may our light shine more brightly, and may we grow in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, putting into practice the things that we hear, living out our faith in a renewed love for the Lord, and a renewed love for each other.  And, by listening to Him, it is His firm promise that He will lead us all the way to the end, into His eternal pasture, where we will be able to feed from the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God, forever and ever.

Amen.