“The AWAKENING Challenge for the
Church in 2018!”
TEXT: Revelation 3:1-6 NLT.
“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Sardis. This is the message from the one who has
the sevenfold Spirit of God and the seven stars:
“I know all the things you do, and that you have a
reputation for being alive—but you are dead. 2 Wake up! 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. 3 Go back to what you heard and believed at first;
hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will
come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.
4 “Yet there are some in the church in Sardis who
have not soiled their clothes with evil. They will walk with me in white, for
they are worthy. 5 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.
6 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the
Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.
I honestly never thought I would have to be dealing with the
situations that I have had to deal with in the last week and a half! I thought
my Children’s generation would……..But NOT mine!
Manifestations of the evil of the Last-Days has come upon
our Country SO fast, that it reminds one of the speed at which a tsunami comes
upon a Coast Line!
And as the “waves-of-water” from a tsunami ENGULFS a Coast
and the people who live there, so has a tsunami of sin ENGULFED America!
And the American Church finds itself in a scenario, that Dispensational
Eschatology had convinced many would be ………..WAY OFF IN THE FUTURE!.......But
…….NOW……
HERE IT IS UPON US!
And if the Church is going to be relevant to our world today,
we MUST
·
WAKE-UP!
·
POWER-UP!
·
SPEAK-UP!
To our Country, as it looks to the Church and asks the
question: “What do YOU have to offer us
in the midst of all this CHAOS and EVIL that is sweeping or Country?”
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II. CHALLENGE #1: “We need to STOP acting like the Sardis Church!”
a.
The Church of
Jesus Christ in America, has often times behaved like…..THE SARDIS CHURCH!
i.
And when we
have, THEY’RE sin has become OUR sin!
b.
The sin in
the Church at Sardis that the Lord rebukes them for is that they were
spiritually DEAD!
i.
They had
begun well in the beginning, but had gone from being FULLY AWAKE and SPIRTUALLY
ALIVE, to being “asleep” and “spiritually dead!”
c.
The
correction for this condition from the Lord is that they are to………”WAKE-UP!”
i.
And then once
awakened, they were to return to the PASSION
for the Lord they had at the BEGINNING
of their FAITH!
d.
Notice that
the Lord doesn’t say that HE was waking the Church at Sardis up!
i.
He had
already given them the POWER to awaken themselves!
e.
The
“ALARM-CLOCK” if you will, for the Church to know it’s time to AWAKEN, is when
the Church sees the culture around them spiraling-downward into the acceptance
and practice of ever deepening sin, and the Church NOT having the effect upon
our Culture we were intended to have!
i.
This my
Brothers and Sisters IS……………….”THE RINGING OF THE ALARM CLOCK!”
f.
The sinful
condition of Sardis,……………is the SAME
condition that the American Church has found itself in TODAY!
i.
The “CALL”
from the Lord to His Church in America is the same as Sardis,……………………..”WAKE UP”…………………….Return to the PASSION
you had for the Lord in the beginning of our FAITH!
II.
CHALLENGE #2: “We Are Presented With a Choice!”
a.
While we need
to be aware of what’s going on around us in our culture, and while we need to
take a stand for God’s Holy Standard of righteousness and for His Word, and
while we SHOULD be alarmed at the magnified manifestation of evil that has been
manifested in our Country, we are presented with…………………A CHOICE!
b.
The “CHOICE”
the Church in America is presented with, is this…………..
i.
We can either
continue to “FOCUS” our attention upon what the DEVIL is doing!
ii.
Or, we can
“FOCUS” our attention on what JESUS is doing, in MANY and desiring to do in ALL
OF US as His FOLLOWERS!
1.
EVERY CHURCH!
2.
EVERY
BELIEVER!
c.
If we focus
our attention, in an unnatural way, upon what the devil is doing, it “PUFFS-HIM-UP!”
i.
It builds his
EGO!
ii.
It pleases
him, when the BRIDE OF CHRIST takes her eyes off of her “HUSBAND” and puts it
upon another MAN!
d.
We can be
AWARE, ALARMED, and CONCERNED about the increase of EVIL in our Country, and
the expression of sinfulness in our Country, but our “FOCUS” ….MUST………remain on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and what HE is wanting
to do THROUGH His Church in these Last-Days!
i.
Stand against
sin,……….But WAKE-UP,………….Get your FOCUS back upon Jesus and His will, ……..Get CLOTHED with His SPIRIT
and His POWER,…………..and ………….”BOLDLY
PROCLAIM HIS WORD TO A CONFUSED, LOST, AND DYING WORLD!”
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“As news began to spread
regarding the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to legalize homosexual marriage in America
this past week, my heart was filled with an unusual mixture of hope and crisis
as I got on my knees before the Lord.
I immediately began to seek the Father regarding His perspective
on the ruling and I believe He said to me, "In the natural, the Supreme
Court justices have just legalized homosexual marriage in America, but little do they know that they also just authorized an awakening of
the Spirit in My bride.
Johnson goes on
to say concerning Intercessors he saw in a vision from the Lord…….
I immediately received a
powerful vision of intercessors gathering from all over America in response to
the ruling. They gathered and began to pray, but what they were interceding
about was very displeasing to the Father………They
are all focused on the call for America to repent when I have called My bride
to repent! You must tell the intercessors to shift their focus from America to
My bride.
Their self-righteous hearts
and blindness to their own sin is a stench in my nostrils. The issues coming
forth in the United States is not an American problem, it's an American Church
problem."
America is in a
crisis, but the American church is in a greater crisis. We are and will
continue to reap what we have sown!
SCRIPTURE:
“They sow the wind and
reap the whirlwind!”
~~~Hosea 8:7a NIV
III.
CHALLENGE #3: “This Will Have a Purifying Effect upon the
Church in America!”
a.
The Lord
prophesied that in the Last Days, there would come a PURIFYING effect upon the
Church that He would send!
i.
This “PURIFYING”
effect would cause a SEPERATION
to occur within the Church!
b.
It would
bring a separation of the TRUE Followers of Jesus FROM the mere RELIGIOUS NON-TRUE
Followers of Jesus!
i.
Listen to the
Word of God on this……..
Matthew 13:24-30
NLT.
24 Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his
field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy
came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the
weeds also grew. 27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir,
the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they
come from?’ 28 “‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer
exclaimed. “‘Should we pull out the
weeds?’ they asked. 29 “‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you
do. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I
will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn
them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”
ii.
The Lord also
informed us that during the Last-Days, the “HEAT” and the “pressure”
of living for Him in the Last-Days would have a “SEPERATION” effect, and hence, as “PURIFICATION” effect!
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 NKJV.
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either
by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not
come unless the falling away comes first,
and the man of sin[b] is revealed, the son of perdition!
ILLUSTRATION:
This is happening RIGHT
NOW, even as we are sharing this Message! Listen to this recent report from Ed Stetzer,
the President of LifeWay Research, and reported by CNN…….
“It's helpful to statistically clarify Christianity in the
United States into three categories—cultural,
congregational, and convictional. The first two
categories are nominal Christians—they
identify, but do not shape their lives around the Christian faith.
Cultural Christians are the least connected -- they call
themselves Christian because of heritage or culture. Congregational Christians
have some connection to a local church, but rarely attend. On the other hand, convictional Christians call
themselves Christians like the other two categories, but they attend church
services regularly and order their lives around their faith convictions.
If you read the headlines this week, you'd think the latter
category is collapsing. But, that would be a sign of bad math, not an accurate
reading of the situation.
About 70-75% of the U.S. population calls itself Christian, but
about 25% of the U.S. population practices that faith in a robust manner. This
includes, in order of size, evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants, and
others.”
c.
You see, it’s
not a matter of the Church of Jesus Christ in America is declining and
shrinking away, BUT rather, because of the “HEAT” of living for Christ in these
Last-Days, the “NOMINAL” Christian’s are LEAVING!........................THEY
ARE “FALLING-AWAY!” just as Jesus prophesied!
i.
THIS fact,……..is also one of the “MAIN” indicators that the appearance of the ANTI-CHRIST is VERY near!
CONCLUSION:
·
Here is the
MAIN-CHALLENGE issued by the Lord, when we as His People find ourselves in a
situation like we are seeing here in America in 2018, And it is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14………………
“Then if my people who are called by my name will
humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I
will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land!”
THE CHALLENGE HAS BEEN ISSUED,……HOW WILL WE
RESPOND?
