Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

If someone asks you, "What is the modern name of the country where Paul was born?" Would you know?

If someone asked you, "What is the modern name of the country where Christians were first called Christians?" Would you know?

If someone asked you, "What is the modern name of the country where Noah's Ark landed and the new world began?"

Would you know?

If someone asked you, "What is the modern name of the country which became the center of Christianity after the fall of Jerusalem, and which became the center of world power and spread of Christianity for 16 centuries?"

Would you know?

The answer to all of these questions is the same: It is the land of Turkey.

I must confess I had no idea that Turkey was a major Bible country, but the fact is, it is.

All 7 of the churches Jesus sent letters to in this book of Revelation were in Asia Minor, which today is Turkey.

The Hittites of the Old Testament developed this land.

Abraham came here on the way to the Holy Land.

It was famous in Greek history as the land where they deceived the city of Troy into taking their wooden horse in which were hidden some of their soldiers.

They took this famous city, and the story is recorded in Homer's famous Iliad.

Turkey is the bridge between Europe and Asia, and it is famous for more than most of us realize.

This is where Florence Nightingale paved the way for modern nursing.

This is where Hippocrates the father of modern medicine came to work centuries before.

Dr. Luke got his training here, and Paul spent most of his life here, and a great deal of his ministry was in this area.

John the Apostle served the churches here, as did Timothy.

Mary the mother of Jesus lived her last days and was buried here.

When Constantine the Roman Emperor became a Christian he transferred the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople in what is now Turkey.

For 7 centuries, which is three times as long as the United States has existed, this was the center of world and Christian power.

The first ecumenical council where Christian leaders from all over the world met was in Nicaea in 325 A.D. There they established basic Christian doctrine held by all Christians to this day.

Not only is a good portion of the New Testament written to churches in what is now Turkey, but out of that area has come the theological foundation for all the creeds of Christiandom.

Everyone of us has been greatly influenced by what happened in the land of Turkey.

The reason I share this is two fold.

First, because most Christians never think of it or hear of it.

It is lost knowledge because we don't know history.

Second, it becomes a startling piece of evidence as to the consequences of not listening to Jesus when he speaks to the church.

Jesus warned these churches that if they did not listen they would be removed, and would no longer be lights in the world, and that is exactly what happened.

This center of the Christian faith was destroyed, and today it is 98% Moslem, and the Christian church has very little influence.

The churches and even the cities are nothing but rubble and wasteland because the church stopped listening to her Lord, and went her own way just like the people of Israel did, and the glory of the Lord departed as it did from the temple of Israel.

The messages to the seven churches are vital to the survival of the church in any part of the world at any time in history.

The lights of the church go out all through history and produce dark ages when Jesus is not heard and heeded.

This background should make us realize how seriously we need to give heed to these letters of our Lord to the church.

Most all of the churches of Turkey have been turned into Mosques or museums because they had ceased to listen.

History teaches us that Jesus says what He means and He means what He says.

We want to look at what He says to the first church-the church of Ephesus.

This letter is really second Ephesus, for Paul wrote one of his most impressive letters to this church several decades earlier.

It was a great church in a great city.

In the original list of the seven wonders of the world which goes back to the second century B.C.

The second one on the list was the temple of Diana in Ephesus.

Pliny the Roman Historian called it, "The most wonderful monument of Grecian magnificence.." It took a 120 years to build it.

It was 425 feet in length and 225 feet wide with 127 60 foot columns, each given by a different king so that all of Asia joined in the building of this temple to their favorite goddess.

The Greeks called her Artemis.

Diana was her Roman name.

Ephesus was the city of greatest renown, and it was wealthy because people came from all over the world to see the temple.

It was the Orlando, Florida of Asia Minor.

Paul almost started a riot in Ephesus because one of the silversmiths by the name of Demetrius made silver shrines of Diana and sold them to the masses of tourists.

Paul came along and said manmade gods are not gods at all.

Demetrius, fearful of losing his money machine, stirred up the people and the whole story recorded in Acts 19 says the crowds became furious for two hours as they shouted,

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians."

The officials finally got them quieted down, but this gives you a glimpse of what life was like in the city of Ephesus.

It was a pagan capital of worship, and with a temple which was awesome.

In the shadow of one of the seven wonders of the world Paul establishes one of the seven churches in Revelation.

Ancient writer after ancient writer raved of the magnificence of Ephesus.

It was the home of the world's most popular goddess.

She had an army of priests and prophetesses, theologians, choristers, and even acrobats.

What chance did a handful of Christians have in that environment.

It would be like setting up a tent along side a great Cathedral and trying to compete.

Paul knew it would be tough, and it was.

He spent three years in a lecture hall having discussions everyday on the Christian way.

The Apostle John followed Paul and gave leadership to this church.

That area became the nursery of Christiandom.

After the fall of Jerusalem, Ephesus became the new center of Christianity.

Diana is a mere record of history known only to scholars, but the letter of Paul to the church of Ephesus, and the letter of Jesus to Ephesus are read and studied by people all over the planet.

The once proud city is now a heap of ruins, and the church is gone, but the messages it brought forth from Paul and Jesus live on to challenge and change the church the world over.

Ephesus was the first of the seven churches to be addressed by the Lord of the church.

It was the closest to the island of Patmos where John received the revelation.

The seven churches were key churches in the area, but they were not all the churches that were there.

There were many others, but these seven represent the total church as seven represents totality all through the book of Revelation.

Jesus begins His revelation of the plan of God from the first century to the last century of history, and on into eternity with these messages to the churches.

The reason is, the church is His key tool to change history and get people ready for His coming and the eternal kingdom.

He does not have another plan.

His church is His body, and by means of it He will fulfill His plan for this world.

The amazing thing we see in these letters is that they are far from being perfect instruments.

Jesus was the perfect man and he fulfilled the will of God perfectly in His death and resurrection.

But now as the Lord of the church He has to finish His work in history by means of His church, and it is still made up of people who live in a fallen world and who are yet far from perfected.

All of the churches have defects, problems, and weaknesses.

If you feel the church is not all it should be, that is not surprising, for Jesus felt the same about the early church.

They had all kinds of problems, and some of them quite serious.

Jesus was very critical of His churches, but it was always with the goal of getting them to repent, change, and become what they had the potential of becoming.

The first thing we need to learn from these letters is that the church needs to be in constant renewal, for it is a fallible human organization, and thus, it is in constant decay.

It is a tool that is getting dull all the time and needs perpetual sharpening if it is to get the job done that Jesus left it here to do.

These were the cream of crop churches, but they had plenty of problems and were in need of revival.

Every Christian alive is to be a overcomer, for that is a major theme in these letters.

In Ephesus they were growing cool and losing their first love.

Jesus says in verse 7, "To Him that overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life."

Problems and bad attitudes of believers can be overcome and reversed.

That is why these letters exist: To bring that very thing about, and make Christians of all churches perpetual overcomers.

At the conclusion of each of these letters you read of a reward to be given to those who are overcomers.

Overcoming sins and weaknesses is what being a Christian is all about.

It is basic ministry of the church to be ever engaged in overcoming all of the things that make Christians less than the ideal tool Jesus needs to get His purpose done in this lost world.

Even to the most deficient church of the lot-the church of Laodicea, which was making Jesus sick so that He was about to spit them out of His mouth, He concludes in 3:21, "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to set with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne."

The worst can still have the best.

The church, no matter how short of the mark, can still be an overcomer and succeed in fulfilling the purpose of Christ in the world.

The Lord of the church is optimistic about the church and its potential for perpetual renewal.

It is always going to the dogs, and Christians are cooling off and following some fool fad or heresy, but Jesus is ever ready to forgive and restore and use this fallible tool for His glory and the salvation of the world.

Jesus never gives up on the church, for it is a living organism, and it can listen, respond, repent, change, and get back on track, even when it goes astray and is part of the problem instead of part of the solution to this world's mess.

The church is just people, a great variety of just ordinary people.