Chapter 1 - Cleansing. (Part one.)

Cleansing the church in the land.

Rev 2

“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. 13 I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city — where Satan lives. 14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you:

There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. 15 Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Repent therefore!”

Albert Barnes (Pastor in Philadelphia 1842.)

“ One sin is interlocked with others and sustained by others… The only power in the universe which can meet and overcome such combined evil is the power of the Spirit of God. There are evils of alliance and confederation in every city which could never be met by a general revival of religion.”

Both OT and NT Scripture testifies that all of God’s actions toward us are based upon grace, and our response to that grace must start with repentance. Such a response releases the action of God into any area affected and infected by sin, no matter how great or dark. We have all seen how darkness can ruin lives, but have probably also witnessed its wider impact upon families, communities, cities and regions. In this season, God wants us to lift up our eyes and see that the grace of God can cleanse and transform all dimensions of life, not just the individual. We will see in this chapter that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more; and that there is no dimension or level of sin, whether in the human soul or in social constructs, that the power of the cross and the Holy Spirit cannot reach and dispel. All it takes is local churches to believe this for their regions.

For there to be a release of grace upon our regions, it has to start with the human heart. The heart is the epicentre of all human sin, and it is where mercy and grace have to ultimately meet each one of us; that is our point of need. But the issues of the heart are also the seed-bed to things that can go awry outside of the realm of the individual. The heart is where all other issues spring out from - Proverbs 4: 23. Sinful actions, words, relationships, can cause wider consequences that cannot only mar the soul, but leave behind powerful after-effects beyond the individual concerned. Sin can potentially spread like a disease into the lives of others, homes, communities and even generations. We are not to underestimate the potency and contagiousness of sin! But neither are we to underestimate the power of grace. Grace speaks a greater word than sin.

Heb 12: 24 ‘…to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel’

The opening Revelation scripture shows us that certain places matter to Christ, yet can carry certain historical sins and problems, that if left undealt with by the local churches, can blight an entire city, thus leading God’s people in that region into idolatry and immorality. Repentance has to come or else they will suffer on a city-wide level, not just from accusation by the accuser, but through being opposed by Christ, Himself. “Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Rev 2:16b

The OT understood this principle of sin’s multiplying effects beyond individuals, especially in terms of how it spread from person to person into the wider community and even upon on the land they inhabited. Though each individual was solely responsible for his or her own sin before God, laws were given to govern and curtail the cause and effect nature of rebellion spilling from one person into the community.

Sin still multiplies today in the new covenant era. However, in the NT we have the all powerful Cross of Christ, and we no longer require the legal code to deal with consequences arising from sins power to multiply. Still, in the Gospels, Jesus showed us that rebellion leads to definite outcomes that carried wider ramifications than just the individual concerned. He preached repentance and forgiveness in such a way as to not only remove the blot of sin from the human soul, but also remove its devastating consequences upon families, villages, towns and cities, even generations. He ministered to the father of a boy with a demon (Mk 9), not just the boy himself. He saw that the father’s unbelief needed to be uprooted for that cause and effect to be broken in the boy’s life. We also see Jesus ministering to the demonised man of Decapolis (Mk 5). The cause and effect nature of this man’s torment, bondage and behaviour had struck fear into the entire region. The demons begged not to leave the region, the people wanted Jesus out of the region, shortly after the man’s deliverance! (Yet in time that very same region brought the sick to Jesus, exclaiming He had done all things well - Mk 7). Jesus knew that sin leavened many if left unchecked, and it carried potential to spread to an entire family, and even a community. He knew that forces of darkness sought to attach themselves to such unconfessed areas of sin and rebellion, maximising their multiplying effects. Paul also warned of this principle in the churches he led (1 Cor 5 & Gal 5).

Personally, I do not believe in generational curses. Nowhere in scripture is the term actually used. However, we do see a principal in Scripture that certain sins can have such a devastating effect in one, that they are then passed on from one human to another (if received and welcomed), whether in the familiar sense or just by cause-and-effect. We can call this generational iniquity. The enemy wastes no time in pursuing this cross-contamination of iniquity from person to person, home to home, community to community, and even generation to generation. Make no mistake, his goal is to defile the real estate of communities to the destruction of many.

This is where God’s apostolic purpose for local churches comes in. In the NT it is clear that God’s purpose in Christ was to reach entire regions through the Gospel. As sin comes as a seed to multiply, so too does the Kingdom of God start with key individuals, and spreads like leaven into entire communities. God is greater. We see that Jesus sent His disciples to homes, villages and towns, proclaiming peace to entire societal units of existence, not just random individuals. He was strategic in all His ministry. He came to claim places for His Lordship. Likewise, the Church of Acts was not just some heaven-bound group of people seeking to populate heaven; rather it had a distinct calling and local assignment. That call through the apostles was to reach people as keys to entire communities, out of which the church was founded in each locale, forming key Kingdom outposts in locations where satan once dominated. Cities were very much part and parcel of the apostolic vision of the early church. The Church was to have a physical local identity yet a powerful, spiritual regional impact (Matthew 18 and Rev 2:13. ) Where it was planted - mattered.

The universal principle is this: As OT Israel was to govern its people and govern it’s land by righteous living, so too was the NT local church to govern the spiritual gate of it’s people and their region or city. As the Church upholds the Gospel and its values, so its region prospers. As the Church goes, so does the land. In Kingdom terms, it is to be salt and light. It is to spread the leaven of the kingdom in this world, thus unleavening sin’s stain and power from people and communities. If we take this seriously, this Psalm can be our inheritance.

Psalm 144

‘There will be no breaching of walls, no going into captivity, no cry of distress in our streets. 15 Blessed is the people of whom this is true; blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.’

This chapter opened with the Revelation 3 scripture. It demonstrates that places still matter to God. Our community, city and region should matter to the Church. And it demonstrates that lamp-stand churches still matter to our cities. God wants the Church to lead well spiritually before an unbelieving community, and thus keep forces at bay so the Gospel can thrive. This does not mean that we will see some utopian Christianisation of our region, but it certainly means that the spiritual gates of our regions are to be maintained by Spirit filled, Bible believing Christians, planted as God’s House in that region. Even if not everyone comes to faith in Jesus through this witness, the Church as it did in Acts, should still leave a divine deposit upon its region. A ‘mark’ that powerfully testifies to the redemptive and cleansing power of the cross, and its efficacy to bring healing, wholeness and change.

Many today focus on the ‘healing of the land’ but often focus on the geo-political and become diverted from this central truth: that it is the spiritual condition of God’s Church that defines the spiritual health of a place, not the political realm. It is not the christianisation of the secular government or nation that should be the focus of our spiritual energy, but the health of the local church and the city it serves. (Revelation 2-3) This is what really counts before God.