Light of the Nations' Foursquare Church in Denver Podcast

The church of Laodicea. In the US in many ways we are like the Church of Laodicea. It was known as self-sufficient, wealthy and in need of nothing. Laodicea was the seventh of the churches that Jesus spoke to in Revelation.

It is the only church about which Jesus did not speak a word of praise. Neither hot not cold, this church had fallen from the true faith. They had refused assistance after a disaster because they thought they were rich. But in fact, they had many problems. They were poor spiritually.

Your children are growing up in a world where they have plenty. Even too much. This leads to crowding out God and hubris. It pulls you away from God.

Beware of being a part-time Christian! Nothing could be more dangerous. Jesus wants to be at the center of your life. Nothing less will do.

This week we have a special guest speaker. Mr Mohamad Faridi is author of “Forsaking my father’s religion”.

A good Muslim does not ask questions, he submits. Islam is the religion of submission. A Muslim is a person who submits to Islam.

This is the story of a Muslim man and his conversion to Christianity. His introduction to the love of Christ. He illustrates the start differences between life as a Muslim and life as a Christian. The stark differences and the struggles.

Praying for Muslims. Allah is an unknowable god. Pray that the veil falls off and they see Jesus. Testimony is what really has an impact.

A ministry word of the Lord: Do not be anxious for anything but in everything with prayer and thanksgiving make your requests before God. (Phil 4:6)

To the angel of the church of Thyatira, His eyes are like blazing fire. (He sees everything.) His feet are like burnished bronze. (He can stand and not fall. This is unlike the statue of Nebuchadnezzar.) His feet are strong and he will not be shaken. He says He knows their deeds and He sees love, faith, service and perseverance. But there is something wrong. They tolerate Jezebel who calls herself a prophet.

This is a message for us today. If we have love and faith, we can stay on track. We need perseverance. The devil is a liar and he will use lies to keep us away from the truth.

Who was Jezebel. In I Kings she was a deceiver. She used her husband (Ahab) to conquer people. She came from a pagan town. Her god was Baal and she hired 450 prophets to work for her to worship Baal. Ahab was foolish and went along with her in everything. She proceeded to lead all of Israel into the worship of Baal. She tried to kill the prophets of God. She came up against Elijah and all of her prophets were killed that day.

In Revelation, Jezebel is a prophet who is leading Christians into sexual immorality and idol worship. As we know, God hates this.

We need to check our love. Are we loving the way we are supposed to? Are we holding on to our faith in God? Are we serving God the way that we should? Hold on and do not give up hope. Reject the evil. There are lies and liars everywhere. Keep your eyes on Jesus and you won’t lose your way.

Sardis looks like it is alive but God know it is dead. Wake Up! If you are dead, obviously you can’ wake yourself up. But Jesus can!

The church of Philadelphia is the other church about which Jesus only had good things to say. Philadelphia is a Greek word that means brotherly love. Jesus says He is the one who can open doors that no one can shut and close doors that no one can open.

The church of Ephesus. They were theologically correct but without love. This is very dangerous. John had been a pastor there in the past. They knew what was right and wrong from a theological standpoint. And they probably too great pride in being right. Pride is always a danger and it leads us into a bad place.

They were good at rejecting false teaching but they had departed from the love that had at the beginning. So the message from God to the church of Ephesus is – REPENT! This is the danger when you have been a Christian for a long time. You have done all the right things. Attended church, taken notes of the sermons, taught Sunday school, done everything right. You can fall into a trap of “knowing” that you are right. But maybe you are not. Maybe you are lacking one important thing. If you don’t repent of that pride, God will take away your light. That is the message to Ephesus. You MUST have love!

Who were the Nicolaitans? The Bible does not tell us exactly except that God hated them. But there are scholars who have studied this and from them we know that they were people who called themselves Christians but practiced sexual immorality and idol worship. God hates that. If you are living a life full of sin and are still calling yourself a Christian, you need to repent!

The church of Smyrna was suffering persecution. And Jesus only had good things to say about this church. The people were being betrayed by those that they knew. In the Roman empire it was required to offer a sacrifice to the emperor each year. Only the Jews were exempt for this. But the Jews were pointing out that the Christians were not offering the required sacrifices and were not Jews. They had kicked the Christians out of the synagogue and then informed on them. The Christians of Smyrna hated the Jews and were being persecuted by the romans for their belief. Jesus said the he knows the slander against you. He knows they are lies! There is a crown of life waiting for you.

Jesus further says that those who stay true to the Gospel to the end, will in no way be harmed by the second death. What is that? Everyone dies once except the generation who is alive when He returns. That one death is not so bad. But if you have rejected Jesus then you don’t have Him to stand up for you when you die. You will be thrown into the pits of hell. That is the second death and it is far worse.

The church of Pergamum is in a town where Satan lives and rules. But Jesus says that this church still clings to His name and have not denied their faith in Him. But some fell for Balaam’s error. This is a false teaching. Balaam told the king that he could defeat Israel if he could get them to forget their faith and move away from it. We can compromise our life by making anything more important than God. It is a very real danger in our culture. We can make an idol out of money or our job or so many other things. We must be very careful!

Keep your eyes on Jesus. Keep your ears listening to Jesus and watch out for the dangers that are lurking out there. There are people who are trying to lure you away from Jesus. God wants to rescue you and your friends from that.

Review of Prophetic Word from last week. The best is yet to come!

Statement from Papa Tshite.

Mother’s Day tribute.

The shepherd is Jesus and his voice is his word. You and I are the sheep. Because we are here and we are the sheep, He is the shepherd. He can’t be the shepherd without the sheep.

The devil is also a shepherd. He takes care of his sheep as well.

Jesus is saying that he knows there are other sheep that he need to get. We are in a flock under the leadership of Jesus but there is another flock under satan. Jesus has to go to that flock and get His sheep that are in that flock.

At the end of days, He will divide the flock. The sheep from the goats. Some people in this flock don’t belong here, but there are also sheep in the other flock that don’t belong there. It is your decision which flock you belong in. Where will you be?

Two things make you His sheep. To listen and to follow. Listening is easy. Following is something else again. Who are you listening to. There are so many voices. You might think that you are listening to Jesus but you might actually be listening to your parents or your teacher.

We are living out of our feelings and emotions. It is hard to follow. We must listen carefully and then we must follow. Even if we are tired. It is sad but true that we listen but don’t follow. We tend to want to do what WE want instead of what HE wants.

The shepherd’s voice can be opposed to your feelings and emotions. What are we to do? You must listen and follow.

There is a song in you that cannot be silenced. Why did Moses and the sons of Israel sing the song? They had been delivered from Pharaoh. They are on the other side of the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army had been destroyed. It is easy to sing on the other side of the Red Sea.

We are all on the other side of the Red Sea. The truth is bigger that the facts. No matter what your situation, you are actually on the other side of the Red Sea. We are not trying to sing our way into victory. We are not singing away the pain or the fight. We forget the truth. The truth is that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. So we should be singing!

We don’t worship FOR breakthrough; we worship FROM breakthrough! We don’t worship FOR victory; we worship FROM victory!

Magnifying glasses make things look larger than they are. Take the magnifying glass off of our problems and challenges. We should be magnifying the Lord in our worship. He is larger than our problems and great and worthy of our praise. He is too small in our eyes. Let’s see Him for who He really is!

The Lord is my strength and my song. It is important that He is MY strength and MY song. Not the He is merely strong.

Did you know that God sings? He does. The bible says so. And that is why we sing.

Jon introduces himself and is relaying a message from God. Identifying Him as He who was, He who is, and He who is to come. He is coming! He is Alpha and Omega. He is the faithful witness. The firstborn from among the dead. The Ruler of the kings of the earth.

You are representing God to the people. This is one of your new jobs since the resurrection. When you pray you are presenting the needs of the people to God. God has appointed us as a kingdom of priests.

Jesus is coming back! We must not forget. He is coming soon. Another way to look at this is that He will come quickly or suddenly. By the time He comes back it is already too late. He will return in the clouds and every eye will see Him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Because they weren’t ready. The people who see His return are the people looking for Him. Everyone else will be hiding their faces. This will certainly come to pass.

A description of Jesus. “One who looked like a son of man.” Dressed in a robe reaching to His feet. He has a golden sash to symbolize his royalty. He has white hair meaning wisdom and age. Eyes blazing like fire. He can see everything. Nothing is hidden. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace. Nebuchadnezzar’s feet in his statue were made of clay and iron so they would break when hit by a stone. But the bronze feet are strong and solid.

His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. Think of Niagara Falls or Victoria Falls. So loud tha there is no other sound. You can’t talk back.

Out of his mouth is a double edged sword. The word of God is sharper than any two edged swords.

The seven stars and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the seven angels of the seven churches. Angels means messengers. The seven lampstands are the seven churches.

The seven churches are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. They are presented in the order in which you would visit them if you were walking.

What is Revelation talking about? It is full of so many interesting things. It is a revelation of Jesus Chrict. It is actually a book of worship. Whoever reads the book of Revelation will be blessed.

We aren’t going to focus on all of the details because that would require too much time and wouldn’t be productive. We won’t know everything, but we will be able to recognize the signs.

Revelation was written by the apostle John. John was not educated, but he was full of the spirit of God. At his heart he was a pastor and a shepherd and a prophet and a revelator.

Jesus had a normal Jewish upbringing. He began his education at age 6. This is called Beth Sefer. The purpose is to learn the Torah, the law. The Torah is the first five books of the Old Testament. Many Jewish boys will memorize the entire Torah during this time.

At age 10 he went to a different school, the Beth Talmud. This is a time of deeper learning. Changing from memorizing to learning more about it. Learning to understand. During this time is the story of the young Jesus in the Temple.

At age 14 to 30 it is called the Beth Midrash. During this time the boys would choose a Rabbi to follow. They would face survival tests. At age 30, Jesus went to be baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus went to the wilderness and was tempted by Satan.

At age 30 his ministry began. He took on students; Peter, Andrew James and John. He also healed the sick and performed miracles. He taught his disciples to become fishers of me.

On the cross, Jesus was saving the whole world but He was also saving his own family at the same time.

While He was on the cross, Mary was there and John was there. He tells John to take care of Mary. “Mother, here is your son. Son, here is your mother”

Jesus died in the middle of thieves. While He was on the cross dying, He was having church. The thieves were taunting Him and insulting Him and during that time one of them had a conversion! While everyone else was cursing, Jesus was blessing! “Today you will be with me in paradise.” The first convert to Christianity was right there on the cross.

Jesus had a song that He sang on the cross. A song? Yes! Psalm 22!

Psalm 22 is a prophesy of the crucifixion and resurrection! It is very detailed in its description of what happened.