Currently I’m studying through the book of Revelation. I think it’s appropriate for “such a time as this.” With the world being absolutely bonkers!!! I need to read the comforting words of God that tells me, “Hey Shari, I have this under control. Yes the world is going crazy, I warned you it would, but read the back of the book and it will bless you!” Of course that is the Bible according to Shari. But it somewhat says that in Revelation 1:3 where it says “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”
I’m currently in Chapter 2 and a word that kept popping into my mind was a group of people called the Nicolaitans. Twice God mentions them in this chapter, telling two separate churches that He is indeed not happy with them because of their behavior like the Nicolaitans. I had to wonder, “what kind of deeds these people had done that got such a harsh rebuke from God?”
From what I can gather the Nicolaitans were behaving in ways that were not honoring to Christ and taking sin too lightly. Boy oh boy, does that resonate with the current state of the world. I’m not throwing stones, because I’m among them. How many things or thoughts come before my eyes and mind that are far from God honoring. And how lightly I take it. I watched a movie after church on Sunday.. yes after church even… it was not a bad movie but it had the warning of sexual scenes and something else. Those warnings didn’t even phase me. Now it ended up that the movie didn’t have anything major, in comparison to today’s standards, but the fact is, I ignored it. Would Christ and I have watched that movie together? Well we did, because He lives in me. That seems such a trivial thing in light of end time events, but it’s merely a launching point for my study.
God is directing these conversations of the writer John to the churches. Not to the lost people out there in the world, but to the churches. Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamos have been addressed so far in chapter 2, and God’s not happy. Is He any happier with today’s churches? Or the people who say they’re apart of the church and act worse than the local heathens. I’m not talking about cussing and drinking and all the other obvious sins that we know to be wrong… yet we take so lightly. God didn’t even mention those in His harsh rebuke. They’d lost their first love, were behaving in ways that brought disgrace to the name of Christ and God told John to call’em out.
Where is the church’s concern for the souls of men?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that God has made me steward over. I’m terrible at it! Jesus addressed this in Luke 16:1-14 KJV
And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. [2] And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. [3] Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. [4] I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. [5] So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? [6] And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. [7] Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. [8] And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. [9] And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. [10] He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. [11] If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? [12] And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? [13] No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. [14] And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.
A few things from that scripture really hit home. The first steward addressed in this story ad been given much, but was terrible at his handling of it and called on the carpet by his matter. “Hello… it’s coming people.” So the unjust steward then decided to go to the people who owed him and lower their debt.
What I found most interesting was verse 8 when the lord said “for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”
Children of light, children of God… those who should know better. His lord told him that the worldly people were smarter than God’s own. Because God’s own know better, and still do err, treating the word and the holiness of God in an unrighteous manner far from the seriousness it deserves. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died for those sins… and yet we don’t give them a second thought.
To serve two masters was to attempt to love money and God. Love the world and say that you love God. Do ya now? Do you love God enough to take sin as serious as you should. Before you say that thing, do that thing… is God glorified?
This message hit me square between the eyes. How about you?