Introduction

Revelation 2:1-7 ESV  “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.  (2)  “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.  (3)  I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.  (4)  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  (5)  Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.  (6)  Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  (7)  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

• Our key verses this morning are those final two verses, verse 6 and 7, let me read them once more for emphases.

Revelation 2:6-7 ESV  Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  (7)  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

• So let’s just recap, shall we, what’s going on with the church of Ephesus.
  • We know, of course, that there was a real church in Ephesus, and that it was literally being written to by Jesus.
  • But we also know, for a variety or reasons we talked about in the first sermon in this series, that the Seven Churches written to in Chapters two and three of Revelation are likely meant to represent all churches, that there is a completeness to these letters, meaning, that any church, at any point of time, in any culture, can relate to one or more of the churches mentioned in Revelation.
    • Therefore, as we read these letters to the seven churches we read them in two ways, one: What did they mean to the literal churches they were written too.
    • And two, what do they mean in that context, to us as a church today?
    • In other words, we are studying these letters so that we as a church can apply what we have learned and grow to be more Christlike, amen?
  • So, we are on our third and final message going over the first letter in Revelation, the letter to the church of Ephesus… And Jesus has given us the perfect example of an Oreo critique…
    • Have you ever heard of an Oreo critique? It’s when you say something nice, then you give a critique, then you say something nice again…
      • Cookie, creme, cookie… the Oreo critique.
  • So Jesus starts with “Look, you have done something really well! You have worked hard at keeping your church doctrine pure and keeping false teachers and leaders out… GOOD JOB!”
  • Then Jesus goes into the critique, “But this I have against you, you have left your first love… you are so inward focused that you forgot that the gospel is meant to be preached, that the light is supposed to shine… and if you don’t repent and get back to doing the work of the Gospel, then I will take your church away”
  • And now He finishes with another commendation… “But guys, by the way… I have noticed how you continue to hate the works of the world and you don’t fold to their pressures, good job”.
    • And that is what we are going to talk about today, not folding to the world… not giving into the Nicolaitans… not just not folding to the world… but actually hating the works of the world.

Show Title Slide

• Hate evil… don’t just resist evil… but HATE evil… Loath it, be disgusted by it, be appalled, HATE EVIL.
  • That’s what we are going to talk about this morning.
    • It’s going to get heavy, it’s going to get deep, it’s going to get theological… but stay with me and I think God will level up the depths of our love for others this morning. Let’s pray.

Point One – We Must Hate Evil

• Point one this morning is that we must HATE evil.
  • WE MUST HATE EVIL.
  • In fact the more we hate evil the more Christlike we become, at least in that area, we can’t neglect loving the lost, we talked about that in the last sermon… but we must hate evil, because GOD HATES EVIL.
  • And sometimes in modern Christianity we act like the word Hate is a bad word… that Christians should never hate… that God is incapable of hating… but that’s simply not true… Christ hates evil, therefore if we hate evil then we are being Christlike, and that is very simply seen here in our key verse this morning.

Revelation 2:6 ESV  Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

• He commends them for their hate of the works of the Nicolaitans… and then He makes it very clear “Which I also hate”.
  • So the issue with the Ephesians is that the kept hating what they were supposed to hate, but somewhere along the way stopped loving what they were supposed to love.
  • They stopped loving Christ and His Gospel… but this they had, they still hated the works of the Nicolaitans.
• Now, we don’t have a ton of information about who the Nicolaitans were, we have a few clues in scripture and a few cultural context clues, but that’s about it… History is pretty quite on this subject.
  • But from what we can gather, most scholars believe the Nicolaitans to be a group of people who want to participate both in the things of Christ and the evil things of the city of Ephesus.
    • They wanted to merge the cultures.
• Ephesus was heavily involved in the worship of both Caesar and to the Greek goddess Artemis.
  • In fact, the temple to Artemis in Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
  • Now we know who Caesar was, he was the equivalent of the King or President of Rome. And there was a large cult in Ephesus that worshiped him as God, in other words, they worshiped politics.
  • On the other hand there was Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting and fertility.
    • And since she was the goddess of fertility, that meant that worshiping her includes lots of fornication, prostitution, and other sexual sin.
• So, likely, the Nicolaitans were a group of people who called themselves Christians and tried to mix in prostitution, fornication, and political idolatry into the church. AND GOD HATED IT, and so did the church in Ephesus.
• LET ME MAKE THIS VERY CLEAR CHURCH. We ought to hate evil… it is Christlike to hate evil…
  • We ought to hate evil and every attempt to bring evil things into our lives, into our families, and into our church.
  • We ought to hate evil sexual practices.
  • We ought to hate evil in politics.
  • We ought to hate evil in all forms, and we must NEVER let it into our church or our lives or our families.

Proverbs 8:13 ESV  The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

• We have to hate evil… its imperative to our faith…
  • And listen church, the world wants you to invite evil into your life, into your house, into your families.
    • They want you to make evil a part of your pastimes…
    • They want to teach your kids evil…
    • They want you to be ok with it.
  • BUT I AM NOT OK WITH IT.
• I am not ok with SpongeBob telling my son it’s ok to be homosexual.
• I am not ok with PBS having a gay wedding in it’s Children’s program Arthor.
• I am not ok with public schools teaching kindergarteners that its ok to have Two daddies or Two mommies.
• I am not ok with Marvel making Loki transgender or captain America gay….
  • Like seriously?! I just want to watch a big green mutated Bruce banner smash some aliens… what does gender orientation or sexual orientation have to do with it?
• And frankly… not only am I not ok with media trying to make my kids gay, I am not ok with them trying to make my kids straight either… my son is six, he is not gay or straight or in between, HE IS SIX… He is not thinking about who he is going to have sex with… HE IS SIX… just teach him numbers and spelling and tell poop jokes… WHY DOES SEX HAVE TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT?!
  • So yes, I HATE what Disney, Nickelodeon, and Netflix are trying to do. I HATE IT. IT DISGUIST ME.
    • So we aren’t going to have those things in our lives anymore. NO MORE am I giving my kids unfettered access to Netflix or Disney plus. THAT EVIL AINT COMING INTO MY HOUSE.
• What about politics…
  • Well if a democrat does something evil, then I HATE IT.
  • If a Republican does something evil, then I HATE IT.
    • And some people need to get their heads out of the sand…
      • Since I have been old enough to vote there has been 3 two year periods where the house, majority, senate majority, president, and supreme court have all been republican or conservative controlled…
        • 6 years where the majority in EVERY branch of government was republican controlled.
          • YET WE STILL MURDER BABIES BY THE MILLIONS.
• BABY MURDER IS EVIL.
  • I hate it when the democrats do it and I hate it when the republicans allow it.
• Why do I say this because we worship CHRIST in this church? We do not worship politicians. PERIOD.
  • And we have had people leave the church because of that… fine, but now this, at CLC we worship Christ. Christ is the only infallible human to have ever walked the earth.
  • And I don’t care what political party someone belongs to, if they don’t belong to the church of Christ THEN CLC WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM.
  • Why? Because we serve Christ here. FULL STOP.
• Baby murder is evil… I hate it.
• Fornication, that is, sex outside of marriage is evil. I hate it.
• Gender confusion and sexual orientation confusion is evil. I hate it.
• Teaching kids to be sexual is evil. I HATE IT.
• And God hates these things too… the Bible is very clear on that. And that brings us to point two… God loves those He Hates.

Point Two – God Loves Those He Hates

Revelation 2:6 ESV  Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

• Now it is at this point in the sermon that maybe you expect me to say something like “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”.
  • But I am not going to say that, first, that is not found anywhere in scripture… but second, because it infers that God does not hate the sinner.
  • Yes God hates the sin, and yes God loves the sinner… but God also hates the sinner?!

Psalms 5:4-5 ESV  For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.  (5)  The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.

Let me read that in the KJV…

Psalms 5:5 KJV  The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

• In other words GOD HATES SINNERS.
• BUT PASTOR, I hear you say, I THOUGHT GOD LOVES EVERYONE.
  • Yes, He does…
• BUT HOW CAN GOD HATE SOMEONE AND LOVE THEM?!
  • Well if that is an honest question that you are having then I would suggest you have a shallow understanding of God’s love.
    • God’s love is not so finite that it cant contend with God’s hate.
    • No, God’s love is INFINITE…
    • God doesn’t only love those He kinda of likes.
    • He doesn’t only love those He thinks are alright.
    • NO! GODS LOVE IS SO MUCH BIGGER THAN THAT.
    • GOD EVEN LOVES THOSE HE HATES.
    • IN FACT, GOD LOVED THOSE HE HATED SO MUCH THAT HE DIED FOR THEM.

Romans 5:7-8 ESV  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—  (8)  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• It wasn’t that God looked down and saw us and was like “Hey, those people are pretty neat, Imma’ die for them so we can hang out”.
  • No! That is a kind of love that even the worst of worst people could have.
• God’s love is so much greater. God looked down at us and saw us, wicked, selfish, prideful, disgusting… He hated who we were, He hated what we did, He hated what we stood for… AND YET STILL He loved us enough to die for us.
• Now we spent a lot of this sermon talking about hate, so let’s spend the rest talking about love.
• No matter who you are, I LOVE YOU.
  • No matter what you identify as.
  • No matter who you are sexually attracted to.
  • Maybe you have had an abortion before.
  • Maybe you are living with your girlfriend.
  • Maybe you rioted in Portland, maybe you stormed the Capital…
  • Maybe you have murdered someone.
  • Maybe you are addicted to some awful substance.
  • Maybe you HATE Christ and want to come in here and shoot up the church…
    • It doesn’t matter who you are, what you stand for, or how evil it is… I want you to know. I LOVE YOU.
    • Christ Loves you.
    • Christ died for you.
    • I WOULD DIE FOR YOU.
      • If it means that you can experience the love of Christ, the joy, the peace, the comfort.
      • If it means that you would repent and give it all to Jesus.
      • If it meant that you would live and not die…
      • If it meant you would be with Christ in heaven for eternity.
      • I WOULD DIE FOR YOU.
        • And many others in this church would die for you too.
• When I say “I love you” I don’t mean “I like you and think everything you are doing is ok”, I mean “I love you, I want you to live forever, I want you to know Jesus, I will not give up on loving you. I LOVE YOU”.
• So yes church, we hate the world and the things of the world.
  • But I will not shut the doors of the church in fear that a homosexual might walk in.
  • Or in fear that a sex trafficker might walk in.
  • Or in fear that a drug addict might walk in.
  • Or in fear that an abortion doctor might walk in.
  • No, in fact I pray that those kinds of people might walk in. That they would stay, and that they would hear the Gospel, and repent, and give their life to Christ.
    • That they would be changed, forever changed, by the power of the Gospel.
  • I love them enough to be uncomfortable in their presence, so that they might hear the words of the True and Living God.

Conclusion

• I am going to conclude by reading the conclusion to the church in Ephesus

Revelation 2:7 ESV  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

• To him who conquers… the one who conquers will have eternal life… the one who conquers will live forever in the paradise of God… But who is the one who conquers? Who is he who overcomes? It is he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

1 John 5:4-5 ESV  For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.  (5)  Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

• Gospel Call
• Repentance call: God is patient with you, even though he hates your sin and has every right to strike you down dead… God is patient… come to repentance today.