Sermon from June 13, 1999
The Lord of the Church has granted me knowledge of the spiritual warfare of the Church in our generation, but He has not yet granted me the authority to declare that knowledge anywhere except here. As an act of my obedience to the Lord of the Church, I declare that knowledge again to you.

In our generation God is leading the church of North America into a test, which is also a temptation by the devil, just as He led our Lord into the perilous desert test, which was also a temptation by the devil. The test is this: Can we Christians be people of integrity in a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with? The fire for Christians in the West is staying true to Jesus Christ when around us all allurements entice when no one is watching. The only answer to the test will be the sacrificial answer of our lives. Here are some examples. I ask you to judge if they do not exemplify the guerilla warfare in which the Church finds itself embroiled.

An effective and powerful minister of Christ pursues his ministry in Europe. While there, unknown to any of his colleagues or hosts, he becomes involved with pornography and prostitution. That continues through his private use of the Internet. The anonymity of a great European city and a personal computer and the instant credibility of a credit card provide the context of his unprincipled pursuit of pleasure. Within a few years, he loses his family and his ministry.

A young man and woman choose to live together outside marriage, and she unexpectedly gets pregnant. He sues her "for becoming pregnant against his will," (FT, Mar. 99, 74). He "is worried about having to pay child support and charges (her) with breach of contract. Some men's groups are supportive of (him), complaining it is not right that women alone have the choice of aborting or giving birth." A doctor in the UK claims to have an alternative. He says that he has the technology to enable men to be pregnant and give birth by Caesarian section. It is all done in the name of freedom.

The state of Massachusetts ranks third wealthiest in the nation, as measured by percentage of the population earning more than $100,000 a year. It ranks dead last in giving money to charity (ibid., 71). Money and the perks that go with it and that make possible our unparalleled freedom also make possible a stingy pursuit of personal freedom and pleasure; and who even cares, except a few cash-strapped charitable organizations that no longer receive government funds?

This is warfare of the soul. Revelation gives a crucial perspective on this guerilla warfare. It teaches us to see in the corrupting of our liberty the hand of the great dragon that was hurled down out of heaven – that ancient serpent called the devil or Satain, who leads the whole world astray (Rev. 12:9). The prophetic word of God in the book of Revelation speaks to us about this guerilla warfare that is being waged against the Church and its unique role in the salvation of the world.

Chapters 2-3 speak first. In these two chapters John wrote seven letters to seven churches. He addressed seven churches, because John used the number seven as a symbol for completeness. It was his way of saying, "What I write, I write for the whole Church." He would include us in that number. John wrote, but the person speaking is Jesus, the Lord of the Church.

You can see what I mean from the opening verse of chapter 2. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. That description of Jesus came right from the last verse of chapter 1. Five of the seven letters begin with a description that comes from Revelation 1. The beginning of the last two letters comes only in part from chapter 1 but is the same kind of description.

The drama of these chapters comes from this direct address of Jesus to the Church. We tend to get excited about less important themes in Revelation. We want to know what 666 means. We want to know if the antichrist is alive and living somewhere in the Middle East. But suppose we knew what 666 meant. Are we prepared spiritually to deal with that reality? Suppose the antichrist is alive and well in the Middle East. Is the Church prepared spiritually to come to grips with him? The Lord of the Church is speaking to us in chapters 2-3. Can anything else matter more?

So, what is Christ saying to the Church in these two chapters? He has one purpose. That purpose runs through all seven letters, and it is this. He is preparing His Church then and now for its indispensable task in fulfilling God's plan for the destiny of the human race. He is preparing His Church then and now for its indispensable task in fulfilling God's plan for the destiny of the human race.

Clearly, God's plan for the destiny of the human race has not been fulfilled. Unless God has given up on the Church, the Church in our generation still has its indispensable task in fulfilling that plan. Therefore, the Church still needs Christ to prepare it for that task. The Church lives under a variety of circumstances, and so Christ must prepare it according to its need. I think that you will find Revelation 2-3 to be as useful in our time as it was in first-century Asia Minor. We will see ourselves mirrored in more than one way in their experiences.

To make the most of these seven letters I want first to explore with you in this sermon this theme of preparation that unifies them all. That will help us to know what we are dealing with and what we need to look for in the letters and in our lives. Let's look at chapters 2-3.

Jesus, the Lord of the Church, was preparing His Church for its indispensable task in fulfilling God's plan for the destiny of the human race. He prepared them by alerting them to the supreme danger that threatened them. Chapter 2:7 gives insight. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Each letter ends with To him who overcomes, I will give ... Clearly, the Church faces an array of obstacles to its task in fulfilling God's plan for the destiny of the human race. The Lord of the Church summons the Church to overcome those obstacles. If a congregation or cluster of congregations fails to overcome, it will fail to carry out its part in fulfilling God's plan. God's plan will not fail. He will remove that church and raise up other congregations that will overcome and carry out this task.

No congregation and no cluster of congregations that make up the Church in an entire city is immune to being removed. Look at verse 5. The risen Christ says to the church at Ephesus (a leading church), Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. "Lampstand," remember, symbolizes the whole church in a given city. No church is indispensable. Many lampstands have been removed. We must not let that happen in Wilmington.

To prevent it from happening we must be alert to the obstacles that threaten to keep us from carrying out our task in fulfilling God's plan. We, like the churches of Revelation, must recognize that the enemy has engaged us in spiritual warfare and learn how to respond appropriately to his tactics. We too must overcome.

To overcome we must be alert to the obstacles that threaten us. To be alert to them we must know what they are. The obstacles will emerge in the warnings that Christ gave to each church. Here I must caution you about something. It is important to note that fear of persecution and a martyr's death was not the only obstacle Jesus addressed. That danger was real and increased in certain places and at certain times, but chapters 2-3 balance that danger with other obsacles that sound like they came out of Philadelphia, PA, instead of Philadelphia, Asia.

Compromise with the world's values and self-complacency could block them from fulfilling their appointed task just as surely as they could block us. In the case of the church at Smyrna, which received no warning from Christ, it had to contend with what we would call a strong sense of inadequacy – a misinterpretation that could also keep it and any other congregation from fulfilling its calling.

Now comes another important feature of each letter. Christ did not only tell them about obstacles they faced. He also praised them for their strengths; which would enable them to carry out their appointed task. Look at verses 2-3. I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

No false humility kept the churches of Revelation from receiving praise for their strengths or from acknowledging them. The Lord's warnings would temper any temptation to become haughty about their strengths.

All of this brings us to the Church's indispensable task in the salvation of the world. Does the Church have only one task? We do not find the answer to this question in chapters 2-3. We find it later. I introduce it here so that we can appreciate more fully what Christ is preparing His Church for. From the perspective of Revelation the Church has only one task. It is to bear witness to Jesus Christ faithfully in the face of opposition, as He bore witness faithfully before those who opposed Him.

John said in chapter 1:9 that he had gone into exile on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. This was the third time in nine verses that John had referred to the testimony of Jesus. He did so in verse 2 in these exact words, and he do so a second time in verse 5 when he called Jesus the faithful witness. Jesus Christ told the truth before Pontius Pilate, even though it cost Him His life. According to Revelation our Lord's experience governs ours. The testimony of Jesus reproduced in the life of His Church even to the point of death is central to John's prophecy. If you hold on to that theme, you will have in hand a key to understanding Revelation and its meaning for our time and all times.

It is right here that we make fruitful contact with a major theme of Christian discipleship that we spent so long on last winter. Christian detachment means to interpret and experience all life in light of the death and resurrection of Christ, and to put to death all those behaviors that would dishonor Christ.

You may object that bearing witness means sharing the Gospel with people who do not believe in Jesus Christ. Bearing witness does mean that. The book of Revelation insists that sharing the Gospel properly belongs in the context of the costly witness of our lives. In a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with, the witness of our lips will be unpersuasive apart from the costly witness of the life of the Church. Amid the seductions of unparalleled liberty and unprincipled pleasure the calling of the Church is "to embody an alternative order that stands as a sign of God's redemptive purpose in the world," (Hays, 196). Jesus Christ did not come to patch up democracy. He came to "make possible a new world, a new social order," (Hauerwas, 49), embodied in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

In a major way the Church's costly witness means Christian detachment. It means that our sacrificial life will find expression in our sexuality, our uses of money, power and knowledge, as well as in how we suffer reproach for the sake of Christ. The Lord designed the letters of Revelation 2-3 to prepare the Church in every generation to bear that kind of witness before the world.

I cannot explain this series of sermons on Revelation apart from the Church. I cannot explain the Church at all. This is a profound mystery (Ephesians 5:32). Among our best symbols for this ineffable reality is the Apostles' Creed. This creed that unites Christians around the world and throughout the ages has in it a line that says, "I believe in the holy, catholic church." That does not mean that Christians accept without question everything their pastors and theologians say. It does not mean that Christians except and imply that the Church is morally above reproach, or that the Church is immune to the characteristics of every other human institution. The Creed means that the Church belongs to that small core of eternal realities, which will ultimately determine the destiny and the blessedness of the human race. Thus the Church takes its place alongside the Father Almighty, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, forgiveness, resurrection, and eternal life. That is the company it keeps.

Here is a picture of how the Church determines the destiny of the world. Jesus took five loaves and blessed and broke them and served 5000 people. When He took bread and broke it at the Last Supper, He was offering, He said, His body to be the spiritual food for all who would come to Him with their spiritual hunger. Then, along came the Apostle Paul and said that we the Church are the body of Christ. We are the loaves, so to speak, that carry His eternal life to all humanity. It is a daring image, but it is His daring image. Certainly, eternal life is His alone by nature. We participate in it only because He has imparted it to us. But He has imparted it to us, and we with our deeds of love and mercy and with the Gospel of salvation for the world and with our costly detachment from those obstacles that would prevent us from fulfilling our task – we carry His eternal life to other hungry souls, as surely as bread loaves carry life to hungry flesh.

We the Church often quibble over secondary doctrines that divide us from each other and fail to celebrate the great unities that bind us together all over the world. We make a fuss over being a Baptist or a Catholic as though being either mattered more than being the bride of Christ. Perhaps among its many gifts Revelation will open our eyes to the absolutely unique thing that the Church is. It behooves us to hear well His preparation of the Church for its task; and while hearing His voice while listening to mine is like seeing your face in a shattered mirror, it belongs to His humility and to ours that it is so.