This is the funeral service for a very dear friend.--When I accepted the call to come to Alexandria in 1975, I met the first Randy. He was a very difficult man. He had been in the Special Forces and hunted Che Guevara in South America. Later he owned a store in the African-American community, where he was always well armed. He resented it when his wife took their three children to church.--Then Randy put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he became a zealous evangelist and a bold witness for Christ. He began a prison ministry, he started Wednesday night suppers that boosted our attendance at prayer meeting. He was one cog in the machine of God's providence that led to the founding of Grace Christian School and so many other things.--The third Randy is an example of a Christian who puts God to the test -Matthew 4-5-7- and discovers that we cannot make God do what he does not want to do. His desire to become rich led to his losing almost everything because he became bitter and angry with God -1 Timothy 6-9-10-.--But Randy never lost his connection with the Lord Jesus Christ -2 Timothy 1-12- because the Lord Jesus keeps his own, and they shall never be lost -John 6-37- John 10-27-30-.--What Randy lost was his enjoyment of God. The joy of his salvation -Revelation 2-5-.--Have you lost your joy- Are you happy- If not, why not-

Laodicea was an extremely wealthy city, famous for medicine, clothing, and commerce. It had everything it needed including water, but by the time that water from the nearby hot springs reached Laodicea, it was lukewarm and nauseating to drink. It was so wealthy, it declined the help of the Roman emperor in rebuilding after it was destroyed by a massive earthquake around AD 60.--It was very close to Colosse, and they exchanged Paul's letters -Colossians 2-1- 4-16-. --Colossians 1-15-18 sheds light on Revelation 3-14. Christ is the head over creation, not the first creature. He is the firstborn in the sense of the heir of all things. We can see this in Colossians 3-18, when our Lord is called the -firstborn- from the dead. This cannot be about chronology because many people were raised from the dead before the Lord Jesus, both by him and by Elijah and Elisha.--This refers to rank- the blessing of the firstborn, as in the case of Jacob over Esau, and Ephraim over Manasseh. In effect, the younger sons, Jacob and Ephraim, succeed their fathers, Isaac and Joseph.--As God, Jesus is the eternal Creator- as a human being, Jesus a creature, but not just any creature- He is the heir of the whole world, its sovereign.

In Isaiah 10-5-6, we are told that God raised up the Assyrian Empire as the rod of his anger to chasten and correct Israel, God's chosen people. That was never Assyria's intention -Isaiah 10-7-- indeed, the Assyrians are only acting within their own evil intentions, boasting in their ignorance against the God who uses them as his ax -Isaiah 10-15-.--In a clear example of predictive prophecy, Isaiah looks roughly a century and a half into the future, past the falls of both the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, and names the Persian who will allow the Jewish people to return to their homeland, Cyrus the Great -Isaiah 45-1-4-.--Steeped in the ancient thought of Zarathustra -Zoroaster-, Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire, -Apprehended Ahura Mazda as God, the one eternal uncreated Being, wholly good, wise, and beneficient- but coexisting with him he saw another Being, the Evil Spirit, Angra Mainyu -Pahlavi Ahriman-, who was wholly evil, ignorant, and malign, likewise uncreated.- -Mary Boyce. in David Noel Freedman, ed. -2008- -The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary-. -New Haven- Yale University Press-, p. 1170---Against Cyrus' dualism, the God of the Bible affirms that He and He alone, -Forms the light and creates darkness, brings prosperity and creates disaster- -Isaiah 45-7-.--This absolutely sovereign God will raise up rulers to shape the world for the good of his own people, whether or not those rulers are good or evil, and without their knowledge that it is the God of the Bible directing their wills to His.

This message addresses two dangerous doctrines that are widely held by Christians today.----The first is that once a person prayers the sinner's prayer, he should never doubt that he is saved, regardless of his current state. 1 John 1-8-10 makes it very plain that Christians do fall into sin, but 1 John 3-4-10 clearly teaches that people who can live in sin, on and on, without repentance were never saved.----King David's sin involving Uriah makes it plain a true believer can fall into sin, and his response to the prophet Nathan's confrontation demonstrates that he truly knew the Lord -2 Samuel 12-13-.----There is another evil doctrine, and that is Christians will escape the demonic persecution that precedes our Lord's return. It is true we will be raptured before God pours out his final fiery wrath on our rebellious planet, but nowhere does the Bible teach that Christians will not come under the fierce persecution of antichrists and the final antichrist, the man of sin -2 Thessalonians 2-1-12-.----Consider the current situation in Afghanistan- Doesn't the Taliban represent the Islam of Muhammad-

The Church of Ephesus is one of only two churches in Revelation who are commended by the Lord- yet even here, negative words are embedded -Revelation 3-11-, just as a positive word is found for individuals in Laodicea -Revelation 3-19-.--What is the Key of David- Shebna, a power-hungry, greedy steward had used his office to promote and enrich himself -Isaiah 22-15-19-, and now he is going to be replaced with the godly Eliakim who will be given -the key to the house of David,- so that -what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.- -Isaiah 22-22---Godly -public servants,- like Eliakim are rare, but they do exist. However, as Revelation 3-7-8 makes clear, there is a better -public servant- than Eliakim, for Eliakim was imperfect. This -public servant- is the -Suffering Servant,- the Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for his people.

Nowhere does the Bible threaten to erase people's names from the book of life. --The idea that Revelation 22-19 teaches this is based on a scribal error in some copies of Jerome's Latin Bible -A.D. 382-405-. In 1516, with pressure to beat others into print and lacking a complete Greek manuscript of the book of Revelation, Desiderius Erasmus simply made up his own Greek text by translating this erring Latin manuscript into Greek. Pope Clement VIII made an erring Latin text the official Bible of the Catholic Church in 1592, until it was corrected following Vatican II.--But Revelation 3-5 promises that true Christians will never have their names blotted out of the Book of Life. The powerful Greek double negative Jesus uses there is the same one he used in John 6-37, when he promised he would never cast out anyone who came to him.--Revelation 17-8 states that our names were written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world. In other words, we do not write our names there, God the Father did that before the worlds began.--Revelation 20-11-15 mentions the Book of Life twice. From there we learn that no one is good enough to escape hell. People's thoughts, words, and deeds are recorded against them -Revelation 20-12-, and everyone will be cast into the Lake of Fire, except for those whose names are recorded in the Book of Life -Revelation 20-15-.--Revelation 21-27 states clearly that the only people who will enter heaven are those whose names are in that book.

Sardis was a dead church -Revelation 3-1-. The city was fabulously wealthy and enormously secure, being built on a hill with steep sides.--Sardis' most famous ruler was the legendary King Croesus, who mastered the art of separating gold from silver and produced the first genuine gold and silver coins in history. He ruled Sardis until 546 B.C., when Cyrus the Great defeated him. That is the same Persian ruler who allowed the Jewish people to return from their Babylonian captivity in 539.--As we reflect on dead churches, we see that there are two kinds. The first is unorthodox and rejects the message of the New Testament -2 Timothy 3-1-7-.--James describes another kind of dead church, one that appears to be sound doctrinally, but its faith is dead -James 2-17-.--Such a church shows favoritism to the rich and humiliates the poor -James 2-1-3-. --God demands absolute perfection -James 2-10-11-, so none of us can ever measure up. We need the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to be put to our account.--We receive that righteousness by faith in Christ alone, but true faith is never alone. Mere intellectual assent to truth is the faith of demons -James 2-19-.--We are declared righteous by faith alone, but our faith is declared genuine by means of our actions alone. In effect, We are justified by faith alone, but our faith is justified by our works alone -James 2-14-18-.

Each of the seven letters ends with a blessing to those who respond to the Lord's warnings with repentance and faith -Revelation 2-7, 11, 17, 26- 3-3, 12, 21-.--What is the greatest of all gifts--- It is the Morning Star, because the Morning Star is the Lord Jesus Christ himself -Revelation 2-28- 22-16-.