Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20020922.htm

CHRIST'S SCRIPTURE PROPHECY ON CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICALISM
Part IV: Christ's All-Sufficiency Applied For Victory
A. Christ's All-Sufficiency Offered To Wean Us From The Idol Of Evangelicalism To Himself
2. Christ's All-Sufficiency Posed To Use Evangelicalism's Persecutors To Wean Us From It To Himself
c. Christ's Offer To Let Persecutors Shift Our Beliefs From Evangelicalism's Errors To His Truth
(Revelation 3:18b[c])
  1. Introduction
    1. If Christ predicted our current Evangelical era of Church History and critiqued our errant actions and beliefs thereby, we should expect Him to offer His specific solutions to these needs.
    2. Rev. 3:18b continues Christ's words offering solutions in changing our errant beliefs in Evangelicalism.
  2. Christ's Offer To Let Persecutors Shift Our Beliefs From Evangelicalism's Errors To His Truth.
    1. Jesus counsels Evangelicals to "buy from me . . . salve to put on your eyes, so you can see," 3:18b[c] NIV
    2. In the previous two lessons, we learned that to "buy" anything from Christ means to gain blessing by way of God's grace, cf. T.D.N.T., vol. I, p. 126. Hence, such insight is to come by God's grace.
    3. To understand this process of gaining "eyesight" by grace, we view the historical and Scripture contexts:
      1. The Laodiceans made a poultice from mineralized tablets that were sliced from a cylinder, reduced to powder and smeared on the eyes for healing, W. Ramsay, The Letters To The Seven Churches, p. 429.
      2. Elsewhere in Scripture, only in John 9 did Christ (as posed in Rev. 3:18b[c]) use a poultice on one's eyes to give physical sight, cf. Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978 ed., p. 1887.
      3. As we learned from Rev. 3:17 that the "sight" needed in this context is spiritual, not physical, we study John 9 (KJV) to discern how Christ in grace would want to give us spiritual insight as follows:
        1. To heal a man who had been born blind in John 9:1-7, Jesus made a clay poultice of spittle and dirt, smeared it on his eyes and sent him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam ("Siloam" = "sent").
        2. When the Pharisees learned of his healing, they tried to get him to discredit Jesus for healing him in violation of their rules. He replied, "How could a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" (9:13-16)
        3. When asked again about Jesus, the healed man told the Pharisees, "He is a prophet," John 9:17.
        4. Still trying to find a way to discredit Jesus, the Pharisees asked him again to tell how he was healed, 9:24-26. Frustrated, the man replied, "I have told you already . . . wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?" a comment that resulted in his being reviled by the Pharisees, 9:28.
        5. In continuing to interact with the Pharisees, this man said, "Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing," a remark that cost him excommunication from the synagogue by these Pharisees, 9:31-34.
        6. Jesus later met the oppressed man to ask if he believed on the "Son of God," a reference to His deity, John 9:35 with John 5:18. Already believing Jesus to be a prophet, he asked Jesus who that was. When Jesus replied, "Thou has both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee," this man believed Jesus was God, and so worshipped Him as such as a believer with eternal life, 9:36-38.
        7. Hence, by use of the poultice, Jesus arranged for the blind man to come into a theological conflict with the Pharisees so he would inadvertently expose their error by his own observations, only to be persecuted for it, and by Christ's aid go from viewing Jesus as a mere "man" all the way to trusting Him as God for salvation, 9:11-38. Jesus said this fit His goal to give spiritual insight, Jn. 9:39.
    4. Thus, similar to the cases of the last two lessons, Christ counsels us to ask Him graciously to arrange for us to be "cornered" into theologically conflicting with errant Evangelicals so that we inadvertently expose their errors by our own observations. That results in their persecuting us. This persecution pain leaves us no recourse but to look to Christ for discernment of the truth (1 Corinthians 2:11-15 and 2 Timothy 1:13-14) to handle the pain, so Christ gives us His insight with its great, resulting blessings!
Lesson: (1) Christ counsels us to ASK Him to ARRANGE for us ("eyesalve") to be CORNERED into interactions with ERRANT Evangelicals so we will inadvertently EXPOSE their error by our own observations to the IRRITATION of the carnal. (2) This leads to our being PERSECUTED, producing a reliance on the Lord for discernment to ease the pain of persecution, so we gain His blessed insight!

Application: May we ask God for "eyesalve" to grow in our INSIGHT of His TRUTH for BLESSING!