Distractions to the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Revelation 3:7,8 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;
I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

Denying the name of the Lord would be to deny that He had the authority to forgive our sins and grant us eternal life. In the name of simply means in the authority of. I want to talk though first on the part that says, Has kept my word.

What does it mean to keep the word of the Lord? First of all it is saying a lot about this particular church. It doesn't say that they did any great deeds like feed the poor, pay tithes, or any of those things which they probably did but Jesus doesn't say anything about their deeds or works. He just says they kept his word and did not deny His name. Yet except for the Smyrna church this church was praised above all other churches. They were not threatened with having their candlestick removed at all. They simply kept His word and did not deny His name.

It was saying a lot to say that they kept His word. Remember they lived in a day that the gospel was not very popular. To preach the gospel may have resulted in losing one's life, going to prison or even being tortured. Yet this church kept the word without compromising in a day when the word of Christ was not recognized as having any importance. Even other churches in that day were departing from the word, teaching false doctrine, becoming lukewarm and departing from the true faith. This church kept going determined to keep His word and not deny His name.

We know that to keep His word would involve practicing what the word said. Since Jesus commanded us to love one another as Christ has loved us, we can be assured that this Church had brotherly love. In fact Philadelphia means brotherly love or love for the savior. They loved their Lord. When we love someone, we will listen to what they say. If we love Christ, we will keep His word.

John 14:23,24 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.

Think about this for one moment. If we love Jesus Christ, we will keep His words. After that we have a promise. We have a promise from Jesus Himself that if we keep His word, He and His Father both will come and make their abode with us. They both come to us when they send the Holy Spirit to abide within us. Notice here that He says the Holy Spirit is given to those that keep His word.

On the day of Pentecost Peter was preaching to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem. He was preaching about Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. He told them that they must repent of sins and believe in Jesus Christ to obtain salvation. Those that believed and obeyed the word Peter preached was filled with the Holy Spirit. Later when Peter was brought before a council because of his preaching he said this:

Here are Peter's words.
Act 5:29-32 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.

The Holy Spirit is given to those that obey Him. We do not just accept Jesus in our hearts and then go our merry way doing our own thing and expect to be filled with the Holy Spirit and make heaven. Turning away from sin and obeying the words of Jesus is what gets us into heaven.

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Mat 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
Mat 7:25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
Mat 7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
Mat 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

The first will of the Father or the first way we can obey the words of Jesus is simply to believe in Him.

To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe first of all that God sent Him to save us from our sins. Sin separates us from God so the first thing to reverse the curse that came to us because of sin is to believe in the one God sent to save us. To believe in Christ then is to receive Christ into our lives and allow Him to take away our sins and replace them with His Holy Spirit who will abide within us. The Holy Spirit baptism is given to those that obey Him. We constantly need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and not just trust in onetime filling years ago. It is how we are today that counts.

Keeping the word of Jesus Christ is very important. It is part of our salvation. If we love Him we will love His words. The moment we receive Christ, His words should be important to us.

If we would listen to someone who was telling us how to receive 1000 dollars cash, we would not miss a word he said. We would listen and then obey the words he said if we believed them.

If someone told us to go to the bank at 4:00 to pick up a check for 1000 dollars for instance, if we really believed what the person said, we would do what he said and go pick up our check. If we didn't believe we would not go.

To really believe in Christ is to accept and live by His teachings. We can't say, "I believe in Jesus and then not care about anything He has to say to us.

To not believe in Christ is to be lost for eternity.

John 5:38 And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

The only scriptures they had in the time when Jesus walked the earth was the Old Testament. Jesus says here that the scriptures testify of Him as the only way to eternal life. It is in the Old Testament but we have to search for it.

1John 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
1Jn 2:5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

If we say we know Jesus and we do not keep His commandments we are not walking in the truth. To know Jesus is to keep His word.

We see then from John that to keep the word of Christ is to keep His commandments.

John further says, 1 John 2:6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

Jesus also said:
Luke 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Yet we have many today calling Jesus lord but have no clue to what He says. That is why the study of the word is so important.

We can't keep the word if we do not know what the word is.

So part of keeping the word is presenting the gospel and teaching the word of God so that people may hear that word and know how to keep it.

Keeping the word then is also sharing the word so that others can keep it also. Keeping the word is not keeping it to ourselves so that no one will learn and understand it outside our four walls.

Keeping the word is doing the word.

We are not keeping His word if we hear and do not do what it says. We can say, "I believe, I have faith, I love Christ, I believe in Christ, I read the bible and so forth but if we do not practice what we say we believe, it is not keeping His word.

To keep His word means to keep the whole word of God. Keeping it, practicing it, sharing it and lving by it.

Titus 1:9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

We hold fast to the word of God so that we can convince others to hold fast to the word of God. We teach, we exhort, we preach and we correct.

As important as worship and praise is, we must not neglect the teaching of God's word, for how can anyone know how to keep the word if they do not know the word.

This is why we have church, have bible studies and have prayer meetings. We have these things so that we are not ignorant of the word of God.

Another thing I want to mention is that once we have known Christ and have known His word, we must never be ashamed of Him. We must never be ashamed of His word. This is the part of the message to the church of Philadelphia that refers to “Thou hast not denied my name. If we are ashamed of Christ, we are in reality denying His name.

We have many today that are watering down the word to make it user friendly or more acceptable to the crowds. This we must not do. To water down the word and downplay the importance of the Holy Spirit is to have a church with no power. Our songs have become user friendly and dumbed down so that the words about the power, salvation, the blood shed for our sins, are removed. We must not do this.

We are tempted to sing upbeat songs to please the youth and that is not wrong in itself but in doing so we must be careful not to make the songs void of the word that will save the soul. There are some songs that we can sing to any god because there is no mention of the name of Jesus, His death for our sins or even of His resurrection. There is no depth to some of the songs. Before bringing new songs into the church for public worship we need to examine them to see if they bring glory to God. Do they bring conviction of sin or do they make us feel comfortable in our sin. We want to make people feel welcome here but not comfortable in their sins. We are here to allow the Holy Spirit to save the lost, disciple the believers and cause us to repent or turn away from sin, not feel good and comfortable if we are living in sin. Music has a way of soothing the soul and if we are not right with God music can dull our senses and make us feel saved even if we are not. We need the power of the Holy Spirit in our worship not just catchy tunes and the beat of the drums. God will show us these things if we seek Him.

By watering down our messages or our music and making it user friendly we are actually showing God that we are ashamed of His Son Jesus Christ and are ashamed of the message of the cross. That message is that Jesus died to save us from sin. He died for our sin; the blood He shed was to cleanse us from sin. We must not be ashamed of or water down this message for it is the only message that will save a soul from hell and grant him or her eternal life.  We have no authority to water down the word of God and make it user friendly.  That word was given to offend, to convict, to save and to heal, not to make us feel comfortable in our sin so that we die in that lost condition.

We deny His name when we are ashamed of any part of His message or His word. We deny His name if we do not believe He has the authority to save us from sin or that He is not who He says He is; “The one who came from God to die for sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. “ Jesus said that if we believe not that “I am He”, in other words if we do not believe He is the one sent from God to save us, we will die in our sins. It is another way of denying His name or denying His authority that came from God to save us from sin. It is serious to deny His name and not keep His word. The Philadelphia church had an open door to the throne because they had kept His word and did not deny His name.