December 24th

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is the 365 Bible Reading Plan. Today is December the 24th, Christmas Eve, the evening that we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a great evening it is. What a great day it is. It is the day the Lord has made, and we need to rejoice and be glad in it. Today we're going to be covering the church at Ephesus. There are seven churches that the Lord Jesus wrote to, actually wrote to their pastors so that the pastor, the messenger of God, could share these words with the congregation. And so he begins in chapter two and verse one to the angel, to the angelos, A-N-G-L-O-S. We just take off that inflected ending, O S, the nominative singular ending, and we come up with the word angel. When you say the word angel, you're not speaking English, you're speaking Greek. Koine Greek, what the New Testament was written in. It is a transliteration. An alpha becomes an A. A G and a G, gamma gamma becomes N G. That's the sound of two G's together in Koine Greek. And then you have an epsilon and a lambda. And those become A N G E L. That's the transliteration letter for letter. But the meaning, the definition is the word messenger. Now most of the time it refers to a heavenly messenger, but sometimes it refers to an earthly messenger, that is, a person. I believe that is what is the case in chapter two and chapter three of the book of Revelation, to the messenger of the church at Ephesus. You see, the pastor, the teaching elder, is the messenger of God to the congregation. Now Jesus said these things, says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. Now, if you want to know what that really means, you can turn back to chapter one, because when the Lord Jesus said he sent and signified it, you could pronounce that sinified it and be closer to the actual meaning in Revelation chapter one, verse one. He sent and sinified it. In other words, through signs and symbols, apocalyptic literature, the Lord Jesus spoke to his church. And in verse twelve he says of chapter one, John said, Then I turned to see the voice, that is, the voice of the person of Jesus who spoke with him, and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, one likened to the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girded about the chest with a golden band. Now all you have to do is keep reading, and you will see in chapter one and verse twenty, the musterion, the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, and then he tells you what it is. Now this is a pattern for us to follow. When God in the book of Revelation gives us a sign, a symbol, a musterion, what's translated mystery, there again, a transliteration. Well, what is the meaning of musterion or in English mystery? Well, it's not a whoodunit, it's not a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys kind of mystery. It's not some kind of mystery like we see on TV. A mystery in the Bible. A musterion is something that is hidden in the heart of God that will be revealed at its right time. And that is mentioned at least seven times in the New Testament. For instance, the mystery of the incarnation. How would God come to earth? It was hidden in the heart of God until the time of revelation, the pulling back of the curtain. The same thing about the relationship between Israel and the church. The same thing about how the Gentiles would be grafted in. All of these are musterion. And so God gives us the answers to these mysteries, not through us thinking and scrutinizing and following our intuition and thoughts, that will lead us astray. But God's word never will. And so what we have to do is we have to search the scriptures to see what God is revealing. And so indeed, not all are this easy, but this one is easy because in the first part of chapter one, the mystery is spoken, and then verse 20 of chapter 1, it is revealed. The mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the Angulas, the Angeloi, the angels of the seven churches, that is, the messengers, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches. And so what that teaches us is that God has the teacher of the Word of God in his hand, the true teacher of the Bible, the true teacher, the words of Jesus, the words of Torah, the words of the Tanakh, of the law, the prophets in the writings, the law of the word of the gospels, the truth of the writings of the New Testament, the Brit Hadeshai, the New Covenant. All of these, when someone teaches the whole council of God, God has that person in his right hand. And he walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. That means the lampstands, of course. And so what he's saying is, I, Jesus, am walking among the churches. He sees everything that goes on, not only in our personal lives, but everything in the churches. That's why we need to be careful. Why? Because God is with us when the church of Jesus gathers together for the purpose of worship, of praise, of prayer, of seeking the face of the Lord Jesus Himself, of God our Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. God meets with us. And so he says, I know your works. Now this is not no as in intellectual knowledge. This is experiential knowledge. I know your works, I know your labor, how you've toiled, how you have had patience, and you cannot bear those who are evil. In other words, they had really taken a stand against evil, and you've tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and found them to be liars. And what Jesus is doing is he's commending the church at Ephesus and saying to the pastor, I know that you've led these people right. I know that they have had good teaching. I know that they are doctrinally accurate and strong. I know that they have stood against ungodliness, and you've tested those who say that they are apostles. You've not believed every spirit, and you've found them to be liars, and you've you have stick to it, you have persevered, and you've borne up under, you've had patience, and you've labored for my name's sake, and you've not become weary. In other words, you've not become weary in well doing. All of these are things that are commendable that Jesus was saying to the church at Ephesus. And after he commended them, then he brought them to the point of conviction. When he said, Nevertheless, you see, the Lord always tries to find something to commend us for, and in every one of these letters, save one, he has something good that he's found in the church that he can commend them for. But then he deals with their sin, he deals with their shortcoming. That's the way he always does, because he knows best, and he knows that unless he points these out righteously, and only he can do that through the Holy Spirit, then we will never change. So he said, Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love, the kind of love you had at the beginning, the priority of love. And so he said, Remember therefore from whence you have fallen and repent and do the first works. In other words, return back and do what you were doing at the beginning, or else I will come into you quickly and remove that which gives light and warmth and heat, that is your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Twice, Jesus said, Repent. So let's look at these four R's. First of all, Jesus said, I want you to remember. I want you to think back. You see, the devil, the enemy of our souls, doesn't want us to think about godly things. He wants to get us sidetracked on everything in the world. But indeed, Jesus said, I want you to remember what it was like when I first saved you. I want you to remember what it was like when you first gave your life to me. You remember the thrill, the joy, the peace, the sense of release and relief, and you loved me with all of your heart, and you were willing to do anything. And then as you began to get caught up in doing and in believing and all the things that go with that, all of a sudden it became about you and what you could do. I want you to remember what it was like when I was first place in your life. It wasn't your family, it wasn't your wife, it wasn't your husband, it wasn't your children, it wasn't anything other than me. I was the love of your life. He said, I want you to remember what that was like, and then he said, I want you to repent. The word repentance, metano is a compound word meto in this construct means to change, and then the word noose is the word mine. Metano to change one's mind. You see, we have to change our thought patterns, we have to change our thoughts before we can ever form an attitude of repentance. Once we've done that, then we can begin to act on that. You see, thoughts always precede an attitude, and attitude always precedes action, and action always on a regular basis precedes habit. And what God wants us to do is get into the habit of loving him, of placing him first. And this is not anything new. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai and when he left the children of Israel to go up on the mountain to die, he told them over and over again, reminded them of it over and over again. Deuteronomy chapter six, Deuteronomy was the summary of the law. Deuteronomas, the second giving of the law, the rehearsal of the law. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses wanted to remind them that the thing that was most important was that they loved the Lord their God with everything within them, their heart, their soul, their mind, their strength. That's why in Deuteronomy chapter 6, to sum up what they were to do, the Shema, the Shema, the Shema, here's what they were to hear, O Israel, the Lord your God. The Lord is one. And you are to love him with the totality of your being, your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. This is the greatest thing man can do. When Jesus was asked, what's the greatest commandment? What's the greatest thing that we can do, Lord? How can we please you in the greatest way? Jesus didn't even bat an eye. He said exactly what Moses did. He said, Love the Lord your God with your whole being, with your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. And then he gave them a twofer after he said, This is the mega commandment. That's right, this is the greatest commandment. The word great is the word mega. And it is the protoss. It is the priority, it's the first. And so what he said was the priority and the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with everything that's within you. And then he gave them a second thing, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. That comes right out of the book of Leviticus within the context of not holding a grudge, but of forgiving and letting go and moving on. I would to God that he would give us a year and the next year that we will let go of those things that we are holding on to and holding against someone else. Now that means not reconciliation, that takes two. It does not mean reunion, that takes two. It does not mean reuniting, that takes two. But what it does mean is you getting free. You cutting the cord that you think you've been holding on to them, but those cords are not holding them, they're binding you. Cut the cord. Make a decision to let go of the hurts of the past. Learn from them, yes. Remember them only as a go to your own heart to be what God wants you to be and to remember that God has forgiven you and let go and put behind you far more than he'll ever ask you to let go of in relationship to someone else. God knows how wicked you are. God knows your thoughts. He knows when you go astray, and he's forgiven you over and over again. You're going to have to make the choice over and over again to forgive those who have hurt you. And so that's the context of loving your neighbor. It means letting go. It means that they're going to hurt you. Yes, those that love are always vulnerable. And listen to me. If you're going to walk the resurrected life of Jesus, remember that that leaves through Gethsemane and on the cross. And so you're going to have to go through the agony of betrayal. Every child of God who is greatly used of God will understand the pain and the suffering of betrayal. And remember, those that we love the most can hurt us the deepest. Because we will never let our enemies in close enough to hurt us. But when we trust somebody, we give them a part of who we are. Then when they betray us, it hurts us deeply. Jesus was betrayed by one of the twelve. And then he was abandoned by all. But Jesus forgave and loved them and continues to love them and love us. And so he said, Remember therefore from whence you're fallen, repent and do the first works. What's the first words? Well, someone will say it's evangelism. No, that's about third on the list. The first thing we need to do is love God with everything that's within us. That's the greatest commandment, that's the priority commandment. Then we love others as God has loved us, and then we make disciples wherever we go, whenever we go, anyone we come in contact with, as soon as God opens the door, we need to share with them the message of Jesus. He said, or else if you don't do this, I'll come unto you quickly and I'll remove your lampstand. What's a lampstand? A lampstand is that which gives light, warmth, heat. You and I don't want our lives to be void of the light of God. The Holy Spirit in our life, when we grieve him and we quench him, he does not leave us, no, we're children of God forever, and he will live with us forever, and he will never leave us nor forsake us. But we might not sense him. We might not sense his presence in our lives because we've grieved him. And the Bible says that what we need to do is to repent, return. How that starts is when we go back to the place to where it all began. When we remember what it was like walking with God in those early days, the love of the espousals, the love of a husband and a bride for each other. That kind of love that says I would swim a river and I can't even swim well, but I would swim a river for you. I would climb the tallest mountain for you. I would do whatever you want me to do just to see your smile. That's what God wants us to do is to return to Him. Ask God to forgive you where you fail to love Him, where you've gotten caught up in the right race of religion and doing and trying to please everyone else. We live our lives for one person. That's the Lord Jesus. Do we serve others? Yes. But he is our love, he is our life. This is why Paul said, For me to live is Christ. And one day when we die, it will be gained. Remember, repent, return. That's the way of victory. For on the way, this is Tony Chris.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Chris. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.