Gordon Neale | What is Your Spiritual Temperature

i have been doing a little series on a sunday evening um on the letters that christ wrote to the churches at the beginning of the book of the revelation and as i have administering this morning i thought i would conclude that series and so this morning we're going to be reading from revelation chapter 3. for those who are new to church revelation is the last book of the bible so if you've got your bible with you go don't start in genesis and work to the front the back pardon me stand at the back and you'll find genesis is there um pardon you'll find revelations there my apology and we um we've been looking at these letters there are seven literal churches geographical places uh these letters were written by the i'm not going to just say the resurrected christ but the exalted christ and he had a message for each of these churches and there's many ways these letters can be applied they can be applied to a congregation a local congregation as they would have been when they were written and they can be to a group of churches we'd probably maybe call them a denomination today could be written to a national church and the amazing thing is when i read them i think sometimes they were written to me so we don't just focus on what type of church they're talking about maybe we should focus a little on ourselves and say what type of christian am i so what we're sharing is it condemn anyone it's just to encourage one another in the things of god so if you have your bible we're in revelation chapter three we're going to look at the church at philadelphia and the church at leo de cia so let me read you if i may first to the angel of the church of upon me these are the words of him who is holy and true who holds the key of david what he opens no one can shut and what he shuts no one can open i know your deeds see i have placed before you an open door that no one can shut i know that you have little strength you have kept my word and not denied my name i will make those who are of the synagogue of satan who claim to be jews though they are not but are liars i will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that i have loved you since you have kept my commands to endure patiently i will also keep you from the hour that is coming upon the whole earth to test those who are living on the earth i'm coming soon hold on to what you have so that no one will take away your crown he who overcomes i will make a pillar in the temple of my god never again will i leave it i will write on him the name of my god and the name of the city of my god the new jerusalem which comes down from heaven from my god and i will also write on him my new name he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches so the first one a little later if we time allows we'll look at leo disier we have um this church which is a church of brotherly love philadelphia speaking of brotherly love and when i was at bible school thousands of years ago i actually went to a stockholm in sweden where there was a very famous church and it was called philadelphia and my first really introduction there was actually a church called philadelphia now they picked the right name i've never been to a church called leo decear yet but they picked a church that was jesus spoke off very highly so i'd like to just walk through this letter and just see where it can apply to us as a congregation applied to us as individual christians on each of the letters as we've seen in the evening christ would always identify himself first now we identify ourselves at the end of the letter so it's dear sir da da da da da at the bottom you're sincerely gordon neal okay so if you want to know and i used to when letters were about before the emails came you often would look at the end of the letter first to see who was right who'd written to you having identified that then that would give your response obviously as you read the letter but jesus does this the other way around he identifies himself at the beginning rather than signing off at the end and on each of the letters and if you haven't been with us on an evening it's a good thing maybe to have a read of each of these letters so the first thing he says there is there to the angel of the church at philadelphia these are the words of him who is holy and true jesus wanted this congregation to know first of all that he was holy and he was true i don't know about you but i find today it's very hard to know who's telling the truth and i have a newspaper um are they telling me the truth i watch the news are they telling me the truth i can go online to different um news agencies uh are they telling me the truth and it comes back you know that sometimes you just your head spins a little bit um who's telling the truth today i'm not going to comment on what the truth is in that sense but it's sometimes it's difficult you know they talk about fake news well anything fake isn't true and jesus declares straight away clear all these attitudes straight away these are the words of him who is holy and true his truthfulness comes out of his holiness um you the two are linked clearly i try to be holy not doing a very good job you say i agree i try to be truthful doing my best to be truthful but jesus is not trying to be holy jesus isn't trying to be truthful he is holiness he is true and everything that he says now is true there can be no contradiction to what he says if we were to ask you your opinion of this congregation or the whole church there would be various things some of you are evangelistic we would say oh you need more evangelism those who are missionaries saying we need more missions those are like prayers we need more intercession there's lots of things that in our burdens are on our heart we would like to see more of but at the end of the day there's only one person who really knows what this church is like there's only one person that only really knows what gordon neal is like that's the one who is holy and the one who is true and when he makes a judgment of me it is not criticism it's truth when he tells me i've fallen short it's not him picking on me it's him being truthful and it's in his holiness and truthfulness that we find acceptance of any criticism that he might bring towards us he also adds another identification not only that he is holy and true but he says there that he holds the key of david what he opens no one can shut and what he shots no one can open again this is a remarkable verse it's a straight quote from isaiah 22 22. and here we find the holy spirit takes this verse from isaiah and brings it straight into the book of the revelation now the key of david etcetera is something that we won't have time to look at and the reason we won't have time to look at it i don't know anything about it if i did i might go on another 10 minutes but i haven't had time to discover it but i know this that it's from scripture it's speaking of david who was the king after god's own heart and i'm trying to answer the question as i speak now but most of all he's saying that i have that key i say what opens i say what closes so having established his holiness his truthfulness he now declares his authority in other words i say it's shot it stays shut if it opens it's open end of story and he comes to this church having established those true great truths having told them listen i'm in charge i'm lord i'm sovereign now listen to what i have to say and those same words come to my life and your life he will close and he will open and what he opens no one in other words he is in control he is in charge he is lord of all things then he has no criticism of at all we have no condemnation of them at all only a commendation he doesn't come and tell them that their robes are unclean or or they're this or that no no he goes straight from saying these things to them he says i know your deeds i have placed before you an open door that no one can shut he'd already said those words from isaiah see philadelphia stood i understand it where great five great roads crossed and this was an opportunity for evangelism to share the gospel with all the traders who would take who would gossip the gospel around the roman empire so he sent them i i know your deeds i s i have a place with you an open door that no one can shut so he says i know your deeds it's a great thing to know that jesus knows everything about us so i think about it and i'm not sure i want him to know everything about me but we can't have one without the other we can't have god knowing everything about our problems and our needs and our problems and our challenges and not accept the fact he knows where we're strong and he knows where we're weak so he says i know your deeds but he doesn't condemn them he says you come now he says he says i know that you have little strength his diagnosis was in leo disease you're rich but really you're poor it was a different comment altogether he says i know you have little strength and there must be folk in this room who've been christians maybe a long while and you think you know that's me little strength you know i was sharing the first service that coming up soon i'm going to visit a church i'm going to speak in a church that i know will have eight people if they all turn up but you don't measure a church by its size this church are standing firm for god in a very very needy area and i applaud them because they're doing god knows their deeds god knows what they're doing and they might say we are of little strength in that sense in comparison to churches around them but they're standing for christ and you may feel that you may feel i'm not a very strong christian i don't feel i'm making an impact let me tell you first of all that's how philadelphia felt he said you have little strength but then he tells them you have kept my word that's his combination you have kept my word very important and not denied my name and then verse 10 since you have kept my commandments so there's three mice he says you may have little strength you may not be one of the super if there is such a thing as a super church and even as i say it i'm wishing i hadn't said it he's saying listen i know your deeds i know you're not strong but listen you have done something very important you've kept my word kept my word you have not denied my name and verse 10 you have kept my commandments this church were worthy of applause because they had realized that the most important person in their church wasn't gordon neal the most important person in their church was the lord jesus christ and we keep his word we keep his name and we keep his commandments and if we do that we will find ourselves strengthened and encouraged and we will have commendation of accommodation from the lord you have kept my word the pandemic i'm sure has thrown our routines out in so many areas really has you know our routine for some of you watching at home you've maybe made the decision not to come back to the building that you're going to just visit us online well we hope you'll review that and maybe join us soon uh there is something about being together that is just so exciting and sharing in this worship but you know we we need to keep his word and one of the things that may have drifted i don't know is our bible reading it's oh god you're not going to tell us to read our bible again yes i am read your bible keep his word as we know his word we'll be in a position to keep his word in that way very very important and maybe that's a little uh a promise you can make the lord now that you'll have a daily intake of his word i'm going to say how long to read his word i'm certainly going to tell you what version to read that's all law legalism but i'll tell you this every one of us would benefit including me if i spent more time reading his word that i might keep his word not deny his name and keep his commandments there were no words of correction for them no condemnation no words of correction and then he comes them in verse 11 with a tremendous statement in verse 11. he says i am coming soon okay so there's a promise i am coming soon this church this denomination which we belong to we believe in the second coming of christ you might say well it's been 2 000 years at least since these words were said uh coming soon two thousand years i i cannot tell you i can't explain that you know there's verses that talk about a day in their time with god et cetera et cetera all i know this and i don't i'm not being clever when i say this he's a week nearer coming than he was last week so a week has gone when i could have been reading my bible witnessing praying and forgiving people quicker we have that chance he says he's coming and he's coming soon we have to live as a church and as christians that he is coming soon anything else then the flesh will just bring us back into mediocrity so he says there i am coming soon take hold on what you have so that no one will take your crown we have a crown to be one you say oh i don't want a crown we we you know i may have even said it you know oh you know i don't want to crown i'm just glad to get into heaven and for some of you that might be quite an achievement just getting in but the bible tells us that we have to live our christian lives in a way that will glorify the lord jesus christ and he himself is saying there are crowns to be won there is applause to be made the illustration often uses that of martyrdom the martyrs how you know how can i compare anything i have done compared to those who have lost their lives i think of some of my friends who died at our mission station in what was rhodesia how can i compare being stuck in a traffic jam with what they did they laid down their lives and so we have to stand back here we have to acknowledge what god has done for us and he says very simply there to him who overcomes take hold of what you have to take the crown so there are crowds the martyrs are under the altar in heaven we have a picture of heaven and the altar is the center of things with god and we find that's why the cross is the center for and that's where the martyrs are central they have that special place but you can live your christian life and maybe you will receive a crown you say well i'm already a king and a priest and a yes yes yes yes but to him that overcomes to him that stays the course years ago i was taught about you don't backslide that was the big thing backsliding we have a much more sophisticated way of describing it now i haven't quite worked out what it is so i'm going to stick with backsliding in that way so they're encouraged with all their goodness he says you've got to hold on to what you have you do not have to turn back hold on and then we find there are promises for those who stay true well they're simple enough i'm i will make a pillar in the temple of my god never again will i leave it i will write on him the name of my god and the name of the city of my god the new jerusalem which is coming down from heaven i will also write in him my new name so we have two names we have the name of god we have christ his my new name names are very important in scripture again the symbolism is is right there i'm not talking about some mass tattooing of people with names we're talking about a name so who am i my name is gordon howard phil you might not have known my middle name was howard gordon phil thought it was handsome but it wasn't gordon howard knew that's how i identify myself that's all gordon yeah gordon neal yeah yeah got him yeah remember big ears yeah we got him the identification of who i am and jesus is saying if you're true if you stick with it you're gonna not only have your own name which he speaks about in another letter you're gonna have my name upon it i remember years ago i was at a bus stop in northhold strangely enough and i think i was coming home from work i worked in harrow then and i was talking to somebody at the bus stop and i said about i was going to church and he said these words he said i heard you'd got religion right because at school um it wasn't too successful i i had a great time but nobody else seemed to you know i'd heard you've got religion friends becoming a christian is not a religious thing although if you put it in a dictionary that's probably where it would come up it's a relationship with christ i didn't get religion i received the lord jesus christ as my savior and we seek to live for him well being very conscious of the time we now look at the last letter which is the letter to the church at leo decea to the angel at the church in leo decea write and i'll just move my notes thank you uh leo this here these are the words of the amen the faithful and true witness the ruler of god's creation again we have the introduction to the letter jesus identifying who he is he doesn't leave that to the end it's at the beginning of the letter and he says there i am the amen the faithful and true witness again talking of faithfulness the amen is yes means i am the yes i am faithful witness and the ruler of god's creation a couple of things there we see the lordship of christ we see echoes of colossians where all things were made by him and that he is the ruler of all things but the wonderful verse for here is this that he comes in the ruler of god's creation and so in this world that we live in when we have so many there's a conference coming up in glasgow about global warming and etc etc we stand back and we we we applaud that we want to join in and we want to make every effort of course we do but he says the ruler of god's creation he comes to this church he says listen no matter what's going on around you and what was going around them was the roman empire which was not a nice place to be a christian let me assure you if think you think you're having a tough time at work you want to just think back to the roman empire and it was a strange thing i remember john lancaster saying this in college that when the church faced its darkest hour it grew the most and the fastest in the book of acts when rome was very much and the jewish world was very much against them and he says god's the ruler of god's creation i'm not a scientist but i know this i believe god created this world you can time your knots with statistics and numbers in the end of it i have to stand back and echo the words of the book of hebrews by faith we believe that god framed the worlds i don't have to understand it i can't understand it my education would fall short of understanding but i know that here's the rule of god's creation and this world is his and when the church and leodis here were going through a tough time and were not behaving as they should jesus reminds them who he is he's the lord of god's creation not caesar caesar was not in charge not the governor of laodicea not whatever garrison may have been stationed in the town he was the lord and that is how he would introduce himself he had no uh commendation for them at all he had nothing good to say he didn't say you know you have you have you're weak but you've kept my word you've no he had nothing good to say about them reminds me about my school reports but that's another story nothing good to say but then he comes to them and he beg he speaks words of condemnation to them he is coming to criticize them now remember he's able to do that because he's the lord of the church he's the lord of creation is the alpha and the omega he is the one who purchased the church with his own precious blood on the cross so he has every right to say i don't have that right you don't have that right he has that right that is why criticism and judgment is a very dangerous thing for the christian because we're actually doing something that is god's job not ours and we get caught up with stepping outside of the mark well let me say we were very careful with words of judgment and attitudes of judgment because judgment belongs to him will not the judge of all the earth do right the scripture says so he has every right to come from and he does come to them he says in verse 50 i know your deeds well we heard that in a previous letter that you are neither hot or cold i wish you were either one or the other so because you're a lukewarm neither hot nor cold i'm about to spit you out of my mouth well well i probably wouldn't have written that i'd have found a more polite way to put it but what he's saying is this think the authorized version spew you out of my mouth david paulson who does some great teaching on this how you can get his cds that may still be available he talks about there being two streams there one being hot one being cold and if you drank the cold one you were all right if you drank the hot one you'd be all right but if you waited till they had got warmish lukewarm lukewarm then it would make you sick so we find here the holy spirit is taking a very natural thing that could happen and using it spiritually so would god prefer you were cold then hot or cold no god isn't saying you've got a choice here god doesn't sing you can be a cold christian it's all right no no no what he's saying is be a hot christian but this in between where you think you're hot and you think you're cold you might as well be cold because it's of no value you see god only knows one temperature if that's the right way to put it that we might go for him with our whole hearts the story's told over i think his name was john nelson power who had a church which was a large church in those days in manchester if ever he went to preach then i never did he would say to the preacher before he got up to preach he'd say are you hot brother and people got word of this and when he was saying oh you're hot brother the preacher says i'm red hot and he'd say right go on up and go and preach and anyway one day somebody came and he said are you hot he said i'm red hot and he said well get white hot you know another one back then the preachers were great guys there was only one temperature you gotta be red hot for god and you know you know it and i know it that living this lukewarm christian life doesn't satisfy at all you know that the happiest and most most fulfilled days of your life is when he was first oh family of course and career have all of those things but when he's first when you're passionate to serve him everything has added value because he is in the right place but what was his opinion that do you not realize he says here these words he says um you say you are rich and have acquired wealth and do not need anything but you do not realize that you are wretched wow listen to this list wretched poor pitiful blind naked what a diagnosis they suffered first of all from indifference they were lukewarm they weren't really bothered the church weren't bothered they had some money in the bank they had a nice building they had all the trimmings or everything else but jesus says it's not enough they were lukewarm there was indifference but then following on from the indifference they had a spirit of independence as we read that in verse 17 you say i am rich i have wealth i do not need anything i don't know how much money this church has got in the bank i don't know i don't need to know i'm not that bothered actually as long as they've got tea bags i don't mind scott can you always have a tea bag all right okay that's it but let me tell you this you know um we do not say we have need of nothing we don't say as a church we don't want to say as a denomination as our movement we're one of the largest um charities in the country etc etc etc etc meaningless pointless it's how our hearts are and we do not say we have need of nothing we are in need of a fresh move of god's spirit today as we were yesterday as we will be tomorrow as we will be on christmas day but you see they had an independence i don't need anyone i was brought up to be very independent i would walk home rather than ask somebody for a lift i'd push the car home on my own rather than ring somebody just the way i was brought up not saying i was brought up right but you know get on with it deal with it uh in that way but when i'm a christian that goes out the window i'm part of a family and part of a church that will support me and help me so they had indifference they had independence and then it says they had ignorance which is very dangerous but they did not realize again in that verse 17 but you do not realize they didn't realize their condition they didn't realize how bad things had got you know wretched oh what a term imagine being a member of the wretched church or the pitiful church or the poor church or the blind church or well we'll miss out the naked church we're certainly not going to have voucher no that was their description you have a name you've got nothing so what happens then what do we do let's sell the building if we're in leo this here let's sell the property give it to the poor and don't anybody say amen there and don't stop me at the door to talk about that because i'm going home in a minute no what does jesus say to them what what hope is that for a church says poor and wretched and all those other things you know lukewarm he wants a spirit is there any hope for that church of course there is hope and the hope is here very simple whom i love i rebuke and discipline in other words everything he'd said about them came out of his love for them because they care because he loved them in that way and he tells the referee i counsel you take some advice here there's there's hope you're all of these things no exaggeration this is what you like but this is what you do to buy from me gold refined in fire so that you can become rich white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameful nakedness and salve to put on your eyes so that you may see each of those answers the spirit of independence the spirit and the difference and the spirit of ignorance in this he comes in and he says there's a way out and he says buy of me now please jesus isn't selling anything he said well he says bye no no no no i think this is what he means if you don't agree please you may well be right and i'm wrong well i think what he's saying here is this it's going to cost you something to get back where you were don't think it's a free ticket you're gonna have to repent you're gonna have to turn around you're gonna have to change your behavior leo this year and whether that's a congregation or gordon kneel or you in church this morning or at home that's what it is buy of me it's gonna cost you something but if you buy the gold you'll be rich again if you buy the white robes you'll be pure again and if you have the eye salve the ointment for your eyes you will see truly the situation and not be in any way fooled by the situation and so there is even hope for them in this way whom i love i rebuke and discipline and then it comes the words be earnest and repent this is not going to be an easy thing leo to see here you're not going to just walk in one not going to walk out the front in some service and you know some famous preacher put his hands on your head and everything's cured that can happen you know i know people where it has happened but it says be earnest leo decear you've not been earnest you have not been you have not really taken this business of being my church being a christian seriously now be earnest about it mean business you know because it is the only way out then comes a famous verse in verse 20 here am i i stand at the door and knock if anyone who hear my voice and opens the door i will come in and eat with him and he with me famous verse it's been preached as an evangelistic text by many but it's speaking to christians here he's speaking to this church he's saying listen i'm outside what a thought that christ was outside of this church he had to knock on the door of his own church now if i forgot my keys and i knocked on the door i hope the wife had let me in i hope she would i think she would she would today anyway let me in and he says i stand at the door and knock he's outside hang on he's supposed to be inside that's how bad things have got please it's jesus outside of your life knocking on the door to get in really he should be in the center of our lives that's what being a disciple is behold i said if he opens the door i will come in and eat with him and he with me that's the fellowship i'm eating with him you can be restored this communion can be back then you and me again restoration but you've got to let me in there's a famous picture um forgive me i shouldn't name it but i can't where there's a picture of jesus standing with a lantern knocking on a door and in that picture there is no handle on the outside the handle's on the inside in other words he cannot come in to your life unless you let him for any who are not christians here this morning may i say that there's a a little window here maybe for you to understand what's happening he's standing outside your life and he wants to come in be earnest repent say i didn't realize i'd fallen short of god's standards we all have that's why christ died for us he's knocking i should do this maybe he's knocking christian are you saying well not today lord i'll let you in on wednesdays and sundays no no he should be inside not outside knocking you've listened well i'm uh have i said i'm about to finish yet good i haven't because i if i did i i didn't mean it and there we come to the the ending on each of the letters to him whoever comes i will give the right to sit with me on my throne just as i overcame and sat down with my father on his throne what a privilege when jesus had been to the cross and died for our sins rose again because he rose again because he had no sin he didn't die for his sin if he had died for his own sins he'd have stayed dead but because he died for our sins he rose again and it tells us that he is now seated at the right hand of the father when we have the occasion when stephen is martyred we hear of jesus standing to greet him but his normal posture if i may say this in a spiritual sense is he's at the right hand of the father and what are thrilled to think again do not be offended by my phraseology here it's almost as if he says now oh you've overcome you've lived your christian life you've done your best you've got a crown and then he says here to sit down in my father's throne sit with me on my father's throne i have this picture that jesus has sat next to his heavenly father not a literal seat i don't think you know he says move over gordon's arrived now there's millions of us so you understand that this is not basically speaking but what a thought that when you and i pass away or when jesus comes and we have been overcomers and we've sought to live for him with all our weaknesses in our failures it is we can he can say to us he's an overcomer move over there's room for you here people think heaven is lying on a beach in the bahamas no it's not heaven is to think that there is the possibility if i live for him with earnestness and desire keep a short list of sins by repenting and forgiving and serving him there is that possibility of a crowd the possibility of a crown but even more he might say come and sit next to me gordon who me and if it's me i don't think it's going to be me but it might it might be you if you live for him

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Length: 36min 1sec (2161 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021