They Say Christianity Is Growing… But Here’s the Truth

Hey everyone, I want to take this time to talk about Charlie Kirk, his death, and what this means for us in the body of Christ. First of all, I spoke for Charlie 3 times. We spent time together. I found him to be a statesman, a very kind man, but a very strong and resolute man, and he was mighty in truth. I will forever be grateful for what he did for this nation and for so many people. I probably woke up about 7 times last night, and all I kept thinking is my friend and brother's gone. My heart was going out to his wife and children, but this is what I want to talk about. Please, I want to speak as a father to the church. Don't let his death be in vain. Jesus said if a seed goes into the ground and dies, it will not abide alone, but it will produce a multitude of fruit. I am believing God that there's going to be thousands of Charlie Kirk's risen up in this nation because the gates of hell will not prevail against the the church. I want to read something to you that the Apostle Paul wrote. Paul said, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. Now what he's talking about has happened to him, he was imprisoned for the gospel at this time. So that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers have become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, and much more bold to speak the word without fear. There's a time for peace and there's a time for war. We're in a time of war right now, and we have got to be valiant with truth. We have got to speak the word of God with all boldness and not draw back not be concerned about hurting people's feelings, but absolutely love people because the greatest way you can love somebody is to tell them the truth. The most unloving thing you can do is watch a person walk towards a cliff and say nothing to them about the direction they're headed. Yet we have so many people that are communicators who want to avoid it and are watching people fall off cliffs. Charlie wasn't that kind of man. I applaud him. I celebrate his life. I celebrate Erica and his two children. And I want to thank you again, Charlie, for the army that you're about to raise up because of your martyrdom. And I want to encourage every one of you, take that mantle and become bold in declaring the truth, as all the other believers did when Paul was put in prison. I love you guys so very much.

I'm going to share something God asked me the other day in prayer that kind of shook me. The Holy Spirit asked me, why aren't Why aren't my leaders exposing what is bringing death to people? Why aren't we exposing these evil deeds? I couldn't answer. I said, why aren't they doing it? He said, what we've got today are people that are avoiding hard scriptures, avoiding the very, very strong scriptures that call us to a life of godliness and holiness. Wake up! Exclamation point. If Christ, the risen Christ, is living in you, Why are you living no different than the world lives? You've got to ask yourself that. If this grieves him, I don't want it in my life. If this is something he had nails driven in his hands to set me free from, I don't want to mess with it. Why we don't preach this, I don't understand. What does this practically look like, Arden? Here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. Hey everybody, welcome to the Jon Bevere Podcast. I am here joined by my son Arden Bevere. Arden, how are you today?

Good today.

You look really good.

You look good, Dad.

You look so big. How in the world did you ever come out of your mother? In the sense of, that was a lot— such a big—

I was a lot smaller back then. Yeah, you were.

I remember, I think you were 22 inches long. You were the longest child of our, our babies. Yeah. So what's that?

Fun fact of the day.

Fun fact. Yeah. So guys, we're talking about the 7 churches in Revelation. We're actually more specifically talking about Jesus's messages to them. Now remember, this is an apocalyptic book. This is about the final days of the age of grace, which are the days we're living in.

Yeah.

So these messages, even though they were truly given to 7 historic Asia Minor churches, they actually really also apply to us today because we are right before his second coming. I believe all 7 identify some condition of the church somewhere in the world. I am looking at this church, Sardis, which we began last week and we didn't get very far into. I'm looking at this church as a church that really would be a message, could possibly be a message Jesus is speaking to the Western, especially American church. We must remember these words are read. This is the risen Savior. We don't have any words from Jesus after his resurrection, other than right here, with the exception of two sentences in the epistles. One's the Book of Acts and one's the epistle. So this is the most direct words of Jesus you can find to the church, the bride of Christ. And I don't quite understand, Arden, why we don't talk about this a whole lot more. And so we are at The Church of Sardis, Revelation chapter— I just said Revelation. Revelation 3:1-6. And I'm going to read his entire message before we talk about it. Okay, Arden?

Yeah.

All right. Write this letter to the angel. That means bishop. That means overseer of the Church of Sardis. This is a message from the one who has the sevenfold Spirit of God and seven stars. I know all the things you do and that you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead. These words are red. These are Jesus's words, okay? And he's talking to a church, not a city. Wake up! Exclamation point. Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. Go back to what you heard and believed at first. Hold firmly to it. Repent and turn to me again. If you don't wake up, I will come to you suddenly as an unexpected thief Yet there are some in the church of Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil. I believe there are so many godly American Christians. They would fall under this category. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine. Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand. What He is saying to the churches. All I can say is, wow. Again, these are messages to the church, churches, the 7 churches. These are not the 7 cities. These are the 7 churches. So please keep that in mind this entire podcast. Jesus is not talking to a supposed church. He's talking to a church. First of all, He opens up with, I know all the things you do. As we said before, He's examining their works. He's examining their behavior, what they do, not what they believe. All right, now let's move on.

And he's calling out specifically people who are doing it well.

Yes, there is a difference. Yes. Okay, very good.

Just showing that there's a difference within the church.

Revelation 3:1. Let's look at it again. But I know all the things you do, and you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead. Wow. The words are in red, straight out of Jesus' mouth. Can you imagine Jesus looking at a church, said, hey, you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead. Okay, now let's talk about what was an alive church. A live church. Okay, Arden, you might have to bring this down to your generation, is a happening church. How would your generation say it?

I don't think a happening church.

When I was your age, when something was really, really happening or something was really cool, we would call it a happening. Man, we're going to go to this. All right. So how do you say—

like they would say it's a progressive church.

Okay. Progressive. I love that. I put that down in my notes. Okay. So that means I'm not out of touch. Okay. So they're progressive. They're relevant. Is that a good way of saying it? They have abundant resources. Now, let's talk about this city again, because maybe somebody didn't hear the last podcast. Let's talk about the city of Sardis. All right. It fell under Roman rule or control in 189 BC, so almost 200 years before the ministry of Jesus. By the first century AD, it was known for its emperor worship. Now, Sardis was one of the most wealthiest cities, most affluent societies in the whole ancient world.

Which can I even put in there is I have a note here saying that the riches of Sardis were actually used to build the temple in Jerusalem.

So very, very wealthy, very wealthy, very affluent society. The pagans there were extremely accepting and didn't care if you worshiped any god. They— if you didn't worship their god, they didn't care. Whereas the other churches were heavily persecuted for it. They just wanted to make money and have a good time. Straight from Logos Bible program. Yeah, there you go. I love my Logos Bible program. I got this straight from one of the commentators. I think I have like 25 5 or 6 commentaries on my Logos Bible, so I can really dive in deep. Right.

Which, I mean, this is even going back to what we talked about previously, which is what we said. They're kind of experiencing this where it's easy to serve God when it's hard. It's hard to serve God when it's easy, and they're living in an easy state.

Yeah. So this church obviously is being affected by this affluent society in a negative way. Instead of this church using the resources to get the gospel out to the known world they have become very worldly because Jesus said, you have a reputation for being alive. Now think about it. They've got all these resources, right? So they're progressive, they're relevant. They're probably— and I wrote some things down, okay? They have abundant resources, as we said, and we just showed you. I would imagine they're probably producing the cutting-edge worship songs. 'cause of their talent and their resources. They have gifted communicators, they're inspiring, they have outstanding messages, they're growing, but they're not seeing their converts living like Jesus. The converts are still living a very worldly life. So they've got the reputation, think about it, throughout all of Christendom of that day, They got a reputation of being alive. They got a reputation of being progressive, but yet Jesus says, "You're dead." Now, what is the measuring stick that shows whether we're alive or dead? Jesus gave the measuring stick. "I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God." Now you say, "Requirements of my God?" They're not pursuing holiness and godliness. They're not living obedient to the commands of the New Testament. Here's the proof of it. Jesus goes on to say in verse 4, yet there are some in the church of Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil. Yeah, I remember when I was again a youth pastor, we had a young man and he was very athletic, very handsome, got saved. We thought he got saved. I don't know if he got saved or not. Only God knows. About a month later, I'm dealing with the fact that he's sleeping with one of the girls in our youth group. I call him into my office, I bring correction to him. 4 months later, 5 months later, he's sleeping with another girl. Called him in my office, really came down on him. A few months later, it was still another girl. We had to actually say, you've got to leave. You can't attend the youth group. Probably should have done it after the second. Yeah, he would have said, I'm born again. He would have said, I'm alive. I question whether he was really alive or not. When you're sleeping with 3 different girls, I've had people that they live together and they have no conviction. They watch pornography. They have no conviction. God said to the people of Israel, You don't even blush when you sin. In other words, there's no conviction.

Yeah.

So this is how you can have a name that says you're alive, but you're dead. Yeah. Because your actions don't meet the requirements of my God.

Which I do find it interesting in this letter that he doesn't specifically address leadership, because my question would be is obviously leadership has probably stopped addressing those things, right? In your mind, is it just he's kind of just saying, I'm just addressing everyone? Because in the past, he would call out specifically leadership, but he's not. He's doing the whole church here, right? Because there's an element in there that you would say that probably the reason they got to this point is the leadership said, yeah, things are going well. The church is progressive, the church is doing well, maybe we don't need to address that thing. Maybe I've addressed that, like you said, I've addressed that a few times. Maybe I just don't need to change anything 'cause we're still doing good as a church, right?

Everything according to John Maxwell, and I love this statement, everything rises and falls based on leadership. I'm gonna go further down on this message and I'm gonna share something God asked me the other day in prayer that that kind of shook me.

Yeah.

So Jesus says in verse 4, there are some in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil. So I think this statement is interesting. Soiled their clothes. Revelation 16:15 in the Amplified says this: Behold, I am going to come like a thief. Blessed is he who stays awake. Now, what did Jesus say to this church? Wake up. Blessed is he who stays awake. Which— what does that mean in the spirit? Means you're alert. And who guards his clothes so that he may not be naked and be seen exposed. Okay, guards his clothes. Wow, this is something. So Jesus talks about not soiling their garments with evil. He talks again in Revelation 16 about guarding our clothes. Now let's listen to what James writes in James 1:27. He says, true outward Christianity in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows. But then the second part is to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world. Hey everybody, as you know, health is a big, big premium for me. It's important that we take care of the temple, the Holy Spirit. Well, did you know that 85% of the meat that you get in grocery stores is imported. Well, guess what? Goodranchers.com. These are friends of ours. We know them personally. They are feeding tons of people in the United States by going to small farms and getting animals that were born in the USA, have had no steroids, hormones, or any kind of other preservatives added. They are eating grass out in the fields. They're healthy. Lisa and I, we get a delivery every single month and you can taste the difference. So they are giving a $40 discount and some extra little goodies for all of our patrons, Arden. Yeah. So what do they have to do to get it?

Well, I mean, those extra little goodies is free meat for life. So that's a pretty good thing to jump on. And all they need to go is go to goodranchers.com., and they can use the, the link below, and then they can use the code BEVERE, and they'll be able to access this limited time special. So please, please jump on it. I can't tell you how nice it is to have the meat coming directly to your door. So go over to goodranchers.com and use the code BEVERE. Good Ranchers American meat delivered.

You know, when your mom makes red spaghetti sauce and I come to the dinner table with a white shirt on, Yeah. She goes, "Honey, you better take that shirt off." We all knew. Now, there's been a couple times, actually more than once. I said, "No, no, no, no, I'll be careful." And sure enough, I got red tomato sauce staining my nice white shirt. Mm-hmm. I know when we wear white tennis shoes, we try to stay out of mud. We don't walk through fields because white gets stained. Now, if I've got black shoes on, not so bad. I got a black shirt on and I get red stains on it, not so bad. But they walk with me in white clothing, Jesus said. To keep yourself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world. So the world, he is saying, can stain our clothing. If you look at Malachi, God says, I hate divorce. Why does he hate divorce? Do you remember?

What is he?

Because it covers your garment with violence. It got stained with violence. Yeah. Now, that's not to say you should feel depressed and all that because you went through divorce. Look, the blood of Jesus can make white as snow. Repentance, everything. We're not saying it, but we're saying we want to keep our clothes white. Yeah, we want to endure. We want to endure hardship. What is hardship? Hardship is when obedience to God is going to create problems from me. Yeah. And when we live that way, we keep our garments unspotted from the world. I mean, I think it's interesting when he says your actions don't meet the requirements of my God. Listen to 1 Peter chapter 4 in the Amplified. Peter says, live as children of obedience to God. Do not conform yourselves to the evil desires that governed you in your former ignorance when you did not know the requirements of the gospel. But as the one who called you is holy, you yourselves be holy in all your conduct and your manner of living. So what does this practically look like, Garden? Here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. There are over 500 commandments in the New Testament. Hmm. Do you know Jesus said, he who has my commandments and keeps them is he who loves me? Yeah, he didn't say he who has my words, he said he who has my commandments. Now, am I going back to the law? No.

Here's the law.

The law says you have to live this way in order to earn a relationship with God. Yeah. Grace says I've put my nature in you, I've empowered you so you can keep my commandments. So keeping the commandments of God is evidence that we really have true grace, whereas under the law you were trying to earn a relationship with God, which the law proved to be impossible. Okay, so I'm gonna prove that there are so many commandments in the New Testament. I'm gonna look at 12 verses just in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 25 through chapter 5, verse 4. Here's 25 commands that you'll find in those 12 verses. Do not lie. Do not sin by letting anger control you. Quit stealing. Give generously to others in need. Don't use foul language. Don't use abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful. Do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Get rid of all bitterness. Get rid of all rage. Get rid of all anger. Get rid of all harsh words. Get rid of all slander. Get rid of all evil behavior. Be kind. Be tenderhearted. Forgive as God has forgiven you. Imitate God. Live a life filled with love. No sexual immorality. No impurity. That would be pornography. No greed. Let there be no obscene stories. Let there be no foolish talk, idle, empty talk. Let there be no coarse joking or jesting. Okay, 25 commands right there in just 12 verses. Yeah. Now, these aren't commands to earn a relationship with God. They're commands we can now keep because we have the grace of God and the character of God in us.

Yeah, it's not a— it's not a that we must do. It's a we will do, right, in that manner, right? It's like because of this transformative power, you will start to see those things happen in your life. And if you continue on those things, what is it going to be? It's your conscience that is going to tell you, no, hey, this isn't right. And you might have been able to do something before and not feel anything, and now you're doing something, you're like, wait, why am I feeling this? Like, why am I feeling this was wrong? Why do I know this is wrong? 'Cause even going back to what you said about, or what I talked about, but the leadership is thinking about the guy who was in your youth group who was continuing down that sin is something that you did that I think a lot of times people will not do is you showed him in that time period when you bring him into your office of, hey, this was wrong. There is a lot of people who have never heard these things were wrong. Like, you might have just gone through that list and they were like, whoa, wait, hang on. I didn't know half those things I was not supposed to be doing.

Because we're not preaching it.

Mm-hmm. Because we just—

what? We want to give inspiring messages instead of life-transforming messages. And only the word of God can transform our lives. Mm-hmm. So here's the good news. You have the character of God in you. You have the grace of God in you. That can give you the ability to do what he commanded. Whereas in the Old Testament, they didn't have the character of God, so they weren't able to keep the commands in order to have a relationship with God.

So Jesus's commandments though, then he goes, kind of takes it even further, obviously, where he says, you know, you've heard it said that if you commit adultery, and he says then if you—

You've heard it said by those of old, if you commit adultery, thou shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you, here's the way it's gonna be under the new covenant. Whoever looks at a woman to lust after has committed adultery already in his heart.

Yeah. So obviously taking that, like, I remember, I think it was Tozer who talked about it, is he said there was almost a sterner and harsher level of understanding of commandments in the New Testament than there was in the Old Testament. Like, how do you kind of—

That really blesses me because in Heart Ablaze I actually wrote that. I said, let's look at the requirements under the law. Yeah. You had to actually jump in bed with somebody that wasn't your wife. To be adulterer under the New Testament. All you have to do is look at pornography.

Yeah. Which you're showing what's the difference here? Like, why is it that Jesus then takes the harder side?

Which I know because we have the character to be able to do it from inside and live it outwardly.

Yeah. Because I look at all these things and it's all those things that people will be like, okay, all right, I got to go into my day and I got to remember it. Don't lie, don't steal, don't, don't, don't sin. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. All those things he said he would write his laws.

Exactly.

Our heart. Exactly. And that's what I'm trying to say is like, that's what I feel like the transformation that happens. It's the same thing of like a marriage, a marriage opportunity. Like when you go into a marriage, I'm not walking down there, or obviously I'm not walking down the aisle, but I'm not sitting there at the altar and saying, okay, here comes my wife, here's all the things now that I can't do, here's all this, no, no, no, no, no, no, like I can't do those anymore. It's no, what am I saying yes to? As I say yes to my behavior and the way that I live, they're all just gonna reflect that. They're gonna reflect that yes that I made. And I know—

But after you got married, did you see a really gorgeous girl and did your mind sit there and go, "Wow, she's gorgeous." And then all of a sudden you went, "You know what? I already have chose my girl. I'm not gonna, she's a very attractive woman, but I'm not going down that path of why don't I get to have a relationship with her? She's so gorgeous." No, you don't go down that path. Yeah. Because you have the power in you not to go down that path.

Exactly. And that's what I'm trying to show is like the difference of what's been empowered and imparted to us now.

I remember this guy looked at me one time, he had just got saved and he said, are you telling me you don't look at women and undress them in your mind? Mm-hmm. I said, God gives you the ability to not do that. He gives you the ability to look at a woman as a human being created in the image of God. He said, "Wow." And you know what? His life is transformed now.

You can look at all these things and say, "Oh man, that's a lot that I've got to do." But then actually to a mature believer, as you understand what God's given you and written on your heart, it's like, "Oh yeah, no, those are simple." That's basically what I've been transformed into.

Let's go a little deeper on this. That's 12 verses and 25 do-nots in 12 verses, right? There's a couple dos in there. Okay. Okay, what do you think with Christian, your wife? You're thinking like, oh, we get to make dinner together tonight. We get to clean up tonight. We get to go on a walk. We get to play with our children tonight. Now, there is a governor in you that goes, I don't want to engage in an inappropriate conversation with the woman who's married to the man next door to me. Yeah. Okay. That's not like I can't have a conversation. No, it's more of a guideline.

Yeah.

There's so many people that do tell obscene stories, do coarse jesting, they do lie, they do look at pornography. Why? When if Christ, the risen Christ, is living in you, why are you living no different than the world lives? Yeah, you've got to ask yourself that. Perhaps some of you are wondering, how in the world does John know about these ancient 7 cities, the 7 churches Jesus speaks to in Revelation. I do it effortlessly by going to my Logos Bible software. In fact, I can get so much information, accurate information, so quickly with just a few clicks. I've been doing it for years. I've written almost every single book using it, and we have a special. So Arden, how do they get this?

All they got to do is they got to jump over to Logos, so L-O-G-O-S logos.com/bavir, and they'll be able to access up to 60 days free. So if you even want to go deeper onto the 7 churches, you can utilize Logos Bible Software for absolutely free. But there's also something else. They have combined up to 190 books that you can get that's normally costing over $3,000 that you can get 90% off. So Go take advantage of this special offer today. Go over to logos.com/bavir and dive deeper into these 7 churches of Revelation.

So with this church, let me say, I'm looking at a church that probably is easily offended. They gossip and slander, they quarrel and fight. They're competitive and ambitious. They don't keep their word. They have a lack of integrity. They're loose sexually. They love to look at pornography. They're greedy, right? Which the Bible calls idolatry. They enjoy inspiring and entertaining ministers who encourage them with their teachings, but shy away from confronting the love of materialism, pleasure, and disobedience and decadence. If they do any outreaches such as holiday feedings, helping those who have faced natural disasters, supporting missionaries or any others, maybe it's being done by this church in Sardis out of compensation for the worldliness they know is in their life. Maybe they're trying to appease their conscience by doing something good during the holiday or something good during a natural disaster, but yet they're still living like the world. And so we got to go to verse 2. Jesus says to them, wake up, exclamation point, strengthen what little remains, for even what's left is almost dead. Wow. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of God. Okay, wake up. Let's go back to the section of commands in Ephesians. Remember the 12 verses I gave, the 25 commands?

Yeah.

Let's go back and continue reading that. So verse 5 goes on to say, you can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins. Okay, stop right there. How many times do people justify and excuse these sins saying, "I'm covered by the grace of God"? You are perverting the grace of God.

Or can I even go deeper onto that? Or we'll excuse those sins and say, "Well, that's just a generational thing. My dad was angry and so I deal with anger," rather than addressing and actually working through those things.

Thanks. What you don't confront doesn't change. Yeah, if you don't confront the sin that you are easily— I love what Hebrews says. It says lay aside the weight and every sin that does so easily beset us. The reason it's not specific is the sin that so easily besets one person isn't the sin that so easily besets the other person. For me, drinking is not a situation. It wasn't even a situation before I got saved. I did it, just forced myself to get drunk so I could be socially right before I got saved. After I got saved, it was really easy for me to say no, no, Right? So, but I know somebody, I actually know somebody that he has said to me, John, that is the sin that easily besets me. And he said, if I take one glass of wine, I'll go on a drinking binge for days. He said, so I have chosen never to touch a drop. And so I love that about him. He understands what is he so easily— so he doesn't excuse, it and just say, well, it's a generational thing, 'cause it's probably gone back to his dad and his dad's dad and his dad's dad's dad. He didn't do it. He decided to use the transformation of the word of God to change and not be an alcoholic, 'cause he was an alcoholic.

Because I would say, I think the vast majority of people are probably listening to this are not people who would say, oh, hey, I know I'm covered by grace and so I'm just gonna keep sinning and sinning. But I think there are things that they've just not, they've not addressed. They've not allowed the transformative power to actually work in it. And they're just looking at things like pornography or something else that's like, maybe I'm overly angry, maybe I'm great with just continuing to use foul language. And they just have seen it as more of like, that's just kind of the sin that I haven't been able to work with. But I have a repentant heart on it. Every time I do, I'm like, man, I got to get better at that, or I got to do this. Right. But then yet they've not allowed the transformative work to actually happen and taken hold of that and say, you know what? No, actually I'm drawing a line in the sand. This is when it's done.

Yeah. And repentance is not condemning yourself. Yeah. Condemnation will never get you free. There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, right? But conviction says, hey, hey, I don't wanna mess with this. I love Jesus so much. He gave his whole life. My creator died for me, shed his blood for me. My creator went through brutality and hostility like I can't even imagine. I don't want to hurt him. I love him so much. That's the posture you take when it comes to this kind of thing. If this grieves him, I don't want it in my life. If this is contrary, if this is something he had nails driven in his hands to set me free from, I don't want to mess with it. Yeah, why we don't preach this, I don't understand. Okay, don't be fooled by those who excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don't participate in these things people do. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of the light, for this light within you produces. So there it is. It produces only what is good and right and true. Now watch this carefully. Determine carefully, determine carefully, determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in worthless deeds of evil darkness. Instead, expose them. Now here's where we're getting to the question Laura asked me the other day. 'expose them.' Don't participate in these worthless deeds, but expose them. It is shameful to even talk about these things that ungodly people do in secret, but their evil intentions will be exposed when the light— now what's the light? The light is the truth of Scripture— shines on them, for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, 'Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead. Remember what Jesus said to that church? Wake up. Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. So be careful. Here's verse 15. How you live. Be careful. All right, now let's, let's talk about this.

Yeah.

Awake, O sleeper.

Awake, O sleeper. Yeah.

Going back to wake up.

Wake up. Mm-hmm. I think it's interesting Their evil intentions will be exposed when the light— see, the Bible says the entrance of your word gives light. So this is, this is a question that a lot of people are asking: why aren't we leaders talking more about this? Why aren't we exposing these evil deeds? Why are we allowing people to secretly engage with these things? Why aren't we preaching in a way that will bring conviction? The Holy Spirit asked me, He said, "Why aren't my leaders exposing what is bringing death to people?" And I couldn't answer. I said, "Why aren't they doing it?" He said, "Son, they don't want to be rejected. They don't want to lose their following." He said, "And their own sins are convicting them." I was gonna say their own sins.

I'd be curious too if there's an element of that. Because I think you are seeing a lot of leaders unfortunately fall, and they're people that you want to see them having a message like this, but then you come to find out there was things in their life that they were holding back on, and it's the realization of they didn't probably want to teach this because it was convicting them, or they wanted to create something that was not convicting them every single day. So that's good. They just, they don't want it's rejection, and then also probably the ability that they have not dealt with their own things.

So Jesus said in verse 3, "Go back to what you heard and believed at first. Hold to it firmly." You know, it's interesting. Now when he says, "Go back to what you heard at first," I mean, hey, you could have come in through a cult and realize that you were taught some legalistic things or cultish things. I think when you look at, at first, I think he's talking about the truth you heard at first. If you look at 1 John 2:24-28, says, so you must remain faithful to what you were taught from the beginning. That which is from the beginning, that which we've heard, that which we've seen, that we declare to you. Who is what? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God, and his name is Jesus. So the living Word of God. Go back to what— so It's interesting how people will try to squirm their way out of commands in the New Testament, justify them, and what happened is they got away from what they believed at first.

I mean, if you look at whenever you see someone get saved, like, there's such a joy, there's such an excitement, such an anticipation. I almost feel like he's referencing back to and understanding, like, this church has gotten to a point where they are complacent. They're kind of sleepwalking through life, allowing things to happen that shouldn't be happening, doing things, not really fully in love with Jesus the way that they first had that love, where even he wrote to the other church of saying, go back to your first love. It's like there's all those things that are happening. And I feel like it's almost that recalling back to the joyful, the youth, the expression that you had when you got saved, where it's like, OK, what's next? What do I need to do? What should I do? And I think that almost comes back to Whereas so many people have made the pinnacle of their Christian walk the day they got saved, which it's kind of to me is like, it shouldn't be just the pinnacle. It should be the building block of everything else that is supposed to come onto your life. And going back to what you even talked about of all the things that you're seeing of right in the beginning of what does it make a relevant church or no, sorry, not a relevant church, but do what we talked about previously on this episode, in talking— or sorry, previously on this previous podcast— is, is your life making a difference before you believed? Do you stand out in a lost world? Are you advancing the kingdom? Like, if not, you know, you have a faith that might not be genuine. Yeah, genuine standards. And so understanding what he's even calling them back to is like, bring back that, that first love.

We're not saying all this to try to bring people under bondage, to bring people into legalism. We're saying this because we deeply We love you and we don't want you to regret 25 million years from right now that you didn't hear and listen to the Word of God. We don't want you to regret that you did what the Bible says. I'm reading 2 Timothy this morning, right? In 2 Timothy, Paul said, people are going to amass teachers in the last days that will give them what they want, their itching ears want to hear. Unfortunately, that came off the heels of Paul saying, preach the Word of God, whether it's welcomed or unwelcome. So what we've got today are people that are avoiding the hard scriptures, avoiding the very, very strong scriptures that call us to a life of godliness and holiness because they realize we live in a very affluent society. If you look at America, America is like they say, an American is living in the highest affluent lifestyle of almost 19 out of 20 people on the planet. So what are we doing? We are allowing people to get entangled, caught up with the affluence of what we have, the, the life of ease, the life of comfort, the life of pleasure, the life of recreation. It seems to compete. It's amazing to me how much money is spent in this country on recreation, on comfort, on ease. And yet we're not being productive. Why? Because we are a people that says, I want ease, I want comfort, I want pleasure. And yet what it's doing is lulling people into the sleep. And this Sardis church allowed that affluent society— I mean, even the people of the ancient world looked at Sardis and said, oh my gosh, do they get to live in a very comfortable state? But yet they allowed it to lull them to sleep. So continuing Jesus said, Repent and turn to me again. If you don't wake up, I will come to you suddenly as an unexpected thief. Whoa, whoa. That's the second time he tells them to wake up. Yeah. And I just— I just feel right now that there is way too much left on this church to talk about. But here's what I kind of want to leave everybody with. He said, if you don't wake up, I'll come to you unexpectedly as a thief. Okay. That one shakes me to my boots. And there's a reason for it, because Paul said to the church that was on fire in Thessalonica, but you, brethren, are not in darkness so that that day should overtake you as a thief. Hmm.

So they're living in darkness.

Jesus just said, if you don't wake up, I'll come suddenly, as unexpected as a thief. Paul said to the church on fire in Thessalonica, but you brethren are not in darkness so that this day— what day is he talking about? The day of the Lord, which is the 7-year tribulation, should overtake you as a thief. Okay, we got 2 different churches here. One is being told that Jesus is going to come unexpectedly as a thief. The other one says you're not in darkness. Yeah. So that day should overtake you as a thief, unexpectedly, surprised. We're going to talk about that in the next podcast. So guys, I just feel like we are not to rush through this. This is Sardis. This is the one that I feel so strongly in my heart when I pray that is most like the American church. And I hope you can hear the voice of a father who deeply loves the people of this nation. I love America. I pray that God will pour out His Spirit on this nation again, but I am concerned because I look at a parable that Jesus told right after talking about the end days, and He says there are 10 virgins. They're all expecting the bridegroom to come. They all have lights, 5 are left behind. We're going to talk about that in the next podcast. You don't want to miss it.