"Overcomer's Menu" Revelation 2-3 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Tonight I want to look at Revelation chapter two and three.

This is a section of Revelation that is the seven letters to the seven churches.

Revelation two and three is the seven letters to seven churches, and it is uh received by people in kind of two different ways.

For those that are relatively well off in this world, this is a section of the scripture that uh comes with theological questions.

Um it's often the common response to this kind of uh section of scripture is why does God offer rewards to believers if believers can't lose their salvation?

A lot of Americans study this passage and they come away with theological questions like, why does God have to say for those who overcome, I give you this reward?

How do if you can't lose your salvation?

And people will come across this kind of passage and ask, well, what about the end times?

What does this teach about the rapture or the timing of the rapture?

Because there's rewards here for people that aren't there anymore, and some of them seem to happen after the rapture, and so how does that all fit together?

Those are the kind of questions that people from relative prosperity come to this passage.

But I'll tell you, people that come from a place of persecution and difficulty in this life have a totally different flavor when they encounter these seven letters to the seven churches.

It is not uh something that is received in terms of can you lose your salvation as much as it is received in terms of motivation to press forward into faith, motivation to hold on to Christ, motivation to just recognize that Jesus is worth it, that it is worth loving Christ and worshiping Christ despite the persecutions in this world, despite the hostility in this world, despite difficulties from friends and family and work and governments and just all the sin and suffering in this world, these seven letters teach us that it is in fact worth it to hold on to Christ.

It is worth it to be obedient to Christ through the suffering in this world.

It's worth it.

I mean, oftentimes we just think in very practical terms that obedience to Christ would require me to live my life in a way that would deprive me of happiness or to live my life in a way that would even put me into positions where I would suffer.

And doesn't Jesus want me to be happy?

So why would I want to go into this kind of situation of, you know, why would I want to go in the mission field?

Why would I want to honor the Lord in my relationships?

Because these things are difficult.

And Revelation 2 and 3 tells you that no, it is in fact worth it to obey Christ, because Christ will reward those who have their faith in him.

Christ rewards those who overcome this world.

Christ rewards those who have a love for him inside of their hearts that is greater than their love for this world and greater than their fear of suffering and their fear of difficulty in this world.

Not that the fear of suffering is null and void, it certainly exists, but the treasures that Christ offer us eclipse even that.

The other day, in fact, yesterday, one of my daughters uh lost her tooth.

And in our house, we don't do the tooth fairy, because that's pagan and immoral.

Um we do the tooth mouse, which is totally different.

Um the tooth mouse is something that I picked up when I was in South Africa, and I love it.

It's a bit a more compelling story than the tooth fairy.

The tooth mouse is a mouse, a particular kind of rodent that lives and builds his house out of teeth.

And the mouse can't get the teeth out of your mouth.

I mean, it's a mouse, it's not gonna wrestle a tooth out of your mouth.

But when it falls out and you leave it under your pillow, the mouse knows where it is and can find it and takes it to build his own house.

Now, this mouse doesn't need chocolate, of course, and he has access to all the chocolate in your house because mice can go wherever they they please.

And so the mouse will bring you chocolate.

And it's a compelling story.

So our kids, when they lose a teeth, they put their their tooth somewhere and the uh the mouse comes and gets it and leaves them chocolate.

It's better than the tooth fairy, okay?

You're mocking me right now, but I think it is superior.

The tooth mouse.

But it dawns on me that why, I mean, even places in Africa have stories about what happens with the kids' teeth when the kids' teeth fall out.

What's the importance of that kind of story?

And it doesn't make your tooth falling out conditional.

You don't tell your kids when your tooth falls out, you'll get chocolate to make their tooth falling out conditional.

Like their tooth might fall out or might not, but if they want the chocolate enough, then it will fall out.

No, the tooth is gonna fall out.

What the chocolate does, or what the tooth mouse does, or the tooth fairy does, or whatnot, is it gives them something to look forward to to give them the right attitude in the midst of something that would otherwise be scary for a young child.

So my youngest comes up to me yesterday, yeah, eating Chick-fil-A sandwiches, which have never harmed anybody, and yet somehow her tooth is is loose, and so she's like, my tooth is loose.

And then she yanks the thing right out.

Okay.

Blood, I mean, it was insane.

None of this wiggly tooth for like weeks.

I mean, she wrestled that thing right out of her face.

I have not told Didier this yet.

She's learning this for the first time.

She wrestled that tooth right out of her face.

Uh and I was with my one of my friends, Mike, and we're looking at blood everywhere, and we're like, okay, good thing the moms aren't here.

You know, what motivates her to do that?

Well, I think in this instance, she wanted chocolates as a motivating factor.

I think this is a helpful way to bridge those two worlds when you look at the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3.

These rewards are given to us to motivate us to persevere, knowing that there is tribulation in the world, knowing there is difficulty in the world, there will be suffering for those who hold on to Christ in our future, and yet the promise of rewards provokes us to persevere through it.

It does not make heaven conditional.

It doesn't mean like, oh, unless you, you know, unless you try hard enough, you'll lose your salvation.

That's not the right way to understand rewards in the Bible.

The right way to understand rewards in the Bible is that the offering of rewards is a motivating factor to make you persevere.

And that's why Revelation, which is a book that is going to describe the end times, it's a book starting in chapter four that is going to describe future tribulation that will fall upon the whole world.

It's a tribulation such as never happened before, Jesus says.

And when it comes to the world, it will, it would deceive with all the Antichrist and his false teaching that's coming with it.

It would deceive even the elect if that were possible, Jesus says.

I mean, this is an unparalleled amount of persecution coming on the earth.

And Jesus is going to describe that to people, but before he does, he writes to these seven churches that were existent real churches, really in Asia, modern-day Turkey.

They were really there, real believers, real suffering, real trials, real difficulties.

And he writes them these letters to encourage them to persevere, knowing that even worse tribulation is in the church's future.

Worse tribulation is in the church's future.

And so he's telling them you will have rewards.

These suffering will happen to you, but God is going to bless you on the other side.

You know, salvation isn't something we can use we can lose.

Salvation is something that happens to us.

God saves us, and so we can't lose our salvation.

He saves us.

But he saves us and then motivates us to godly living by promising us rewards for those that uh that overcome this world.

And we will overcome this world because God gives us so many tools to do it.

God gives us so many tools to persevere in our faith, doesn't he?

When you come to faith, he seals you with his Holy Spirit.

He gives you himself.

His Spirit seals you.

You see this all over the book of Hebrews, for example, and rewards what we will receive when we overcome.

We will die and we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be rewarded for the deeds done in the flesh, deeds that were good and profitable that advance the kingdom of God, and we'll receive a reward.

And that should motivate us because we want that reward.

Very well-known verse, Jesus says, store it for yourself treasure in heaven where moth and rust and thieves can't affect it.

If you put your treasure here in this world, you'll lose that when you die.

It'll be stolen from you in your life.

And even if you can hold on to it throughout your life, you die, it'll be gone.

But you can store it for yourself treasure in heaven.

That motivates you to use your resources in this world and your expectations of the next world.

You're funneling your resources there.

You're saying, I don't want to hold on to them in this life because I'll lose them.

I wanna I want them in the next life.

That mo that promise of reward motivates you to persevere.

And that's why they're so critical to understand.

That's why the book of Revelation begins with these kind of instructions.

There's an unprecedented time of suffering coming upon the world.

It will be difficult for Christians.

Even before the events of Revelation 4 through 19, there are trials in the earth.

Now we'll see some of them in these churches in Revelation 2 and 3.

There is persecution, there is martyrdom, there are believers being killed in horrible ways.

There is temptations, there's false teachings, there's people losing their jobs.

We're going to see one of these cities, Christians were losing their jobs because they wouldn't worship the idols of the trade guilds.

They were being unemployed, their families were going hungry, and they're wondering, is it worth it to hold on to Christ if it means I can't feed my kids?

And the answer is yes, it is.

Those who the Father calls, he will draw.

Those whom he draws, he will raise up on the last day.

He will not lose any one of them.

And when he raises us up, he will reward us.

And so I want to go through these seven letters of seven churches and look at the rewards for all of those who overcome.

The first church we see here is the church of Ephesus, and you can look down at chapter 2, verse 7.

Ephesus is described in verses 1 down through verse 7.

But the reward is seen in verse 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 the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

This Greek word, of course, for conquering or overcoming is the Greek word Nike.

There's no spiritual benefit of knowing that, it's just kind of cool.

To the overcomers, they are labeled as Nikes.

You know, they're cool shoes, and you get to uh a reward in heaven when you get there.

So the one who conquers, I will grant them, they will eat the tree of life.

That's the promise that they get.

This church in Ephesus is the most mature of these seven churches.

It is the most mature church described in the New Testament.

It is where John himself had pastored Paul, pastored there, Timothy pastored there.

The letter to the church, um, Ephesians that we're reading on Sunday mornings is written to this church.

This is a very mature and strong church, the strongest of all the churches that receive this letter.

But they are also going to deal with temptation.

They're going to, it says in verse 3, have to endure patiently.

They'll have to bear up for my name's sake, but they haven't yet grown weary.

In other words, there's burdens being placed on them by the world and by persecution, and they're holding up underneath those burdens.

And so Jesus is telling them, keep pressing forward, keep pressing forward.

Keep holding on to Christ, keep withstanding that burden in life, and you will receive, he says, the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.

This tree is not new here.

We have seen this tree before.

The tree of life makes its appearance in the book of Revelation in the Garden of Eden.

It's what Adam and Eve were allowed to eat that let them live forever.

It is different than the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which they were not allowed to eat, because once they ate that, the devil said they would then be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.

So there was no death in the Garden of Eden.

Life was sustained in the Garden of Eden.

But when they sinned and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, now they had their eyes open, they realized they were naked, they fell in depravity, and God said they can no longer live forever and hid the tree from them.

And of course, the tree and the whole garden is removed from the earth at the very latest during the flood.

You can't geographically find it anymore.

The coordinates are kind of given in Revelation where it is in the gardens and all that.

The earth changed radically at the flood.

So go in your garden of Eden of hunt, you will come up disappointed.

That tree is gone.

But that tree will make an appearance again on earth in the future.

When the Lord Himself descends from heaven to earth, he will reign.

God will dwell with mankind.

Heaven is wherever God is, God is going to dwell on earth with man forever and ever.

The new heavens, the new earth, heaven will be here on earth because God will be here on earth, and we will live forever, and we will live forever because the tree, which we'll find at the end of the book of Revelation again, will bear its fruit every month.

It will bear fruit year round, in other words.

This won't be seasonal.

There won't be seasons of eternal life.

It will be constant.

The Lord will provide eternal life for those who overcome this world.

By sin, we lost life.

When Adam and Eve sinned, death entered the world, and sin, death entered sin entered the world, and death entered the world through sin.

When Adam and Eve sinned, death became the reality.

We all died.

And it took a while for the poison to course through the veins of this world, didn't it?

Adam and Eve lived hundreds and hundreds of years.

We don't.

Life expectancy continued to decline.

And yet in eternity it will return.

We will be have the tree of life and we will live forever.

So the tree of life is linked to having no second death.

There won't be suffering for us.

We die once in this physical world because this world has fallen.

We will not die a second time.

We will have everlasting life.

And so I want you to see at the very beginning, the Church of Ephesus, where these letters are structured.

They're structured geographically, of course.

These seven cities are how the messengers would go geographically.

They, you know, it matches the route here that they would follow.

But it's also going to follow a route through Scripture.

And I want you to appreciate this.

When I said this morning, if you're familiar with these seven letters, I hope you learned something new tonight.

This is what I was talking about.

I hope you learn that there's a theological progression to these rewards.

And you're going to work chronologically through the Bible from Genesis all the way to the end of Revelation here.

And we start back in Genesis with the tree of life.

It was lost by sin, and it is restored to those who overcome this world.

That's the Church of Ephesus.

Second, the Church of Smyrna.

Church of Smyrna.

We jump down to chapter 2, verse 10 and 11.

Do not fear what you're about to suffer.

Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison.

You will be tested for ten days.

You will have tribulation.

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

He who has the ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says of the churches, the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

The first death is, of course, physical.

That came into the world when Adam and Eve lost the tree of life.

The church at Ephesus has promised they'll get the tree of life back.

When Adam and Eve lost that tree, they suffered the reality of physical death.

The real death that you understand, of course, is the second death.

It's not the physical death that we all die.

The real threat is the second death, that we after dying would be thrown into hell.

Jesus himself says, Do not fear the one who can destroy merely the body, but rather fear the one who, after destroying the body, can cast the soul into hell.

That's the second death.

You're going to encounter the second death at the end of the book of Revelation, described as the lake of fire.

It was designed for the devil and the demons, and yet those who reject Christ and die in their sin will be held accountable for their sin, and then will be cast into the lake of fire and experience eternal judgment.

That's coming at the end of the book of Revelation.

That will be the final threat in the book is that hell awaits those who are outside of Christ.

Hell awaits those who stand before God to be judged according to their own works.

But for those who are in Christ, he promises that you will not face the same judgment this book is going to end with.

These letters probably arrived at the churches individually.

They were then compiled with the rest of the book of Revelation and all of John's vision put together.

And so they're going to read.

When the church at Smyrna reads this promise right here, that they will not be hurt by the second death, they're going to file that away.

And by the end of the book, they're going to see the threat of the second death to all those who are not in Christ.

The church in Smyrna was severely persecuted, of course.

They're persecuted mostly by the Jews.

You see this in verse 9.

I see your tribulation and your poverty, even though they're a wealthy church spiritually speaking.

Physically they were in poverty.

They're being slandered by those who say they are Jews and they are not.

They're actually a synagogue of Satan.

The Jewish leaders in Smyrna were persecuting Christians and telling the Roman government to persecute Christians.

The Roman government had given Jews some measure of religious freedom.

And for the most part, the Roman government was willing to treat Christians with the freedom they were giving Jews.

They didn't care about distinguishing the difference between Christians and Jews.

The Jews in Smyrna were appealing to the Roman government and saying, no, those Christians are not part of us.

They're a threat to the empire.

Kill them.

And so Jesus tells them, I know it's happening to you.

But don't worry.

They will kill you.

You are going to die.

Some of you are going to be thrown in prison for ten days.

You're going to suffer horrible things when you're there.

But don't worry.

Because when you overcome, he promises that they'll receive, they won't be hurt by the second death.

They will receive the crown of life.

And so notice here, what was lost when the tree was lost was eternal life.

Now the reality that people are born spiritually dead.

When Adam and Eve sinned, sin entered the world.

All of their offspring will be born spiritually dead.

Because of the spiritual death, we all deserve hell.

We deserve to stand before God and be held accountable for our sins.

When God sends people to hell for their sins, it's not an unjust judgment.

It is a fair judgment that comes because they lost eternal life and sin entered the world.

This is the second thing that the Lord removes by promising believers that when they overcome this world, when they hold on to Christ and treasure Christ and persevere through persecution, not only will they have eternal life, but they won't have the fear of the second death.

They will have the crown of life.

They have the tree back, and they have the reality that they will live with Christ forever.

There's serious persecutions coming up in the book of Revelation, and Jesus lets his church know that they won't be there to experience them.

They won't be in the lake of fire.

They won't be experiencing the second death because they're in Christ.

Thirdly, the Church of Pergamum.

Church of Pergamum.

Church of Pergamum teaches us that the biggest danger to Christians is not persecution, but compromise.

The Church of Pergamum was allowing false teachers into the church.

So much so that Jesus said that you're dwelling where Satan's throne is in verse 13 of chapter 2.

Yet if you hold fast to my name and you don't deny the faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

The church was being led astray, they were being persecuted, and they were being tempted to compromise.

This is the teaching of Balaam, verse 14 says.

Remember what he told Balak?

He's like, so on this hill, it looks like, Balak, I'm sorry, it looks like from this hill I can't give them a curse.

I can't curse them.

So I'll take the money you gave me to curse them, but know that I can't do it in this pocket right here.

But maybe that hill over there will be a different angle.

Let's go try that.

And he gets more money, and they take him to a different hill.

And oh, he can't curse them from there.

But maybe that hill over there, I bet I could curse him from there.

More money, please?

And so Balaam is profit, you know, taking their money, pocketing their money, and finally he tells them, listen, I'm not gonna be able to curse them.

Okay, thanks for the money.

You're not getting it back.

No refund on prophecy policy here.

But he says, listen, the way you don't need to curse to get God's people, you don't need to curse God's people to win.

That's how you might fight people in another religion as a curse or you know, a hex on them or something.

It's not gonna do any good with God's people.

You know what will work with God's people?

Get them to compromise.

Get them to lead a life of sexual immorality, get them to uh get them to start worshiping idols, and then then God will take care of them.

You don't have to worry about cursing them, God will punish them.

That was Balaam's lesson.

The church at Pergamon was living that out.

They were allowing compromise in their midst.

They were being tempted to eat food.

Verse 14 says sacrifice to idols.

They were being tempted to practice sexual immorality.

They were also receiving the teaching of the Nicolaitians, which was a false teaching.

We won't go into that tonight, but it was a false teaching they were believing.

And so Jesus says, You have to don't fall into Balaam's trap.

Do not let sin be tolerated inside the camp.

You know, the church of Smyrna was being persecuted by the Jews.

The church in Pergamon was being persecuted from the inside.

Compromised from the inside.

After God's people in the Old Testament began to go after pagan women, God judged them himself.

It's the same thing here.

So you see the progression.

And God tells them, You have to overcome.

Light cannot have fellowship with darkness.

Idol worship and sexual immorality cannot be allowed inside of God's church.

This is why Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians 5 to separate themselves from what is impure.

Sorry, 1 Corinthians 5, separate themselves from what is impure, to come out from the evil ones in chapter 6.

And that's what Jesus tells the city of Pergamum.

This is a city, by the way, the middle of Pergamum, there's this massive hill, and it had it was a thousand-foot hill.

I mean, it towered over the town, and it was covered with idols.

And it's hard for us to visualize this, but if you've been to some of those kind of places in India that have that kind of setup, or even Bhutan, there was a massive hill in Bhutan covered with idols, and they had these flyers coming out of like uh streamers that people would write their prayers on, and they just streamed everywhere.

It looked like, you know, it looked like a dollar store was shaken up by an earthquake, and everything was plopped down on top of this massive hill.

That's the image there.

That's in the middle of Pergamum.

And the Jews, who were acting holier than thou about this, uh, were selling out the Christians while partaking in this kind of wicked idol worship.

And that's why God says they're actually the synagogue of Satan.

You separate from them.

Don't be tempted to fall into this idol trap.

This is a city that claimed to be so exalted and so knowledgeable.

In the middle of it was a thousand-footh hill covered in temples and altars, and this is why Jesus says, you know, the devil himself lives there.

There were martyrs there that were burned in a bronze bowl.

The Roman governor made a bronze bowl there, and he burned Christian, boiled them to death in this bowl.

That's how they killed people there.

And so there were Christians that were facing that.

And the way to get out of that would just be to compromise on their faith a little bit, and they would be they would be rescued.

What God promises them if they persevere, you see, is the hidden manna.

That's in verse 17.

He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To the one who conquers, I'll give the hidden manna, and I'll give him a white stone with a new name written on it, a stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.

So manna, in the Old Testament, manna was what you know grew on the ground to feed the Israelites in the wilderness.

When they sinned, the ground opened up and swallowed them whole.

No manna for them.

But when they held on and they persevered and they trusted God by faith, he gave them manna so they could eat every day.

They didn't have to be concerned about dealing with the other nations.

God himself would provide for them.

That's the same promise you're seeing here in Revelation 2 to the Church of Pergamum.

If you hold on to Christ, if you overcome this world, he will give you manna.

He will take care of your spiritual needs.

Moses told Aaron to collect an omer of it.

An omer's like three liters or so.

Picture you know, the liter coke bottle, three of those.

Aaron had to collect that much manna and put it inside the ark in the tabernacle.

And the manna spoiled, except on Friday it would stay good through Saturday.

But other than that, the manna spoiled.

The only exception was the Sabbath manna, and then this manna that was put inside the ark in the tabernacle.

Deuteronomy 8, chapter 3 says they did this, so they would learn to remember that man does not live on bread alone, but lives by every word that comes from Yahweh's mouth.

That was the point of the bread inside the tabernacle.

To teach them, man does not live on bread alone.

In other words, you don't need to worry about your food.

You're gonna lose your job if you don't compromise.

You're gonna perhaps be even martyred.

And Jesus says, You don't need to worry about that because I will provide for you.

You don't live on bread alone.

If you overcome, you receive hidden manna.

It represents that God's people will always be provided for.

God always takes care of the spiritual nourishment of his people.

Beyond that, he says, I'll give you a white stone now at the end of verse 17.

In those days, and an athlete, if he qualified for the Olympic Games or the Isthmus Games or any of the big events, he would qualify and he would get a white stone with his name on it that had like the seal of the event on it.

It was like this is before internet, okay?

So there's not, you know, two-factor auth, you know, verification.

There was not, you know, select all the pictures with bridges in it, kind of thing.

They didn't have that.

Instead, they would have a white stone and it would have the mark, a secret mark from that uh event.

And if you had your name on it, qualifying taking all place all over the Roman Empire.

If you qualified, you got the stone.

The judges would write your name on it.

They alone knew what the seal was.

You had the stone that got you in, showed that you qualified, it would get you into the Olympic village, so to speak, back then.

Jesus borrows that analogy and says, if you overcome, you will receive the white stone.

You'll have your name on it.

You'll be invited to the place where there will be heavenly manna, where God will provide for you for ever and ever and ever.

It's a way of letting us know that God knows who real Christians are.

He knows their names.

He knows their names, he knows you exactly who you are, and he will welcome you into heaven.

Now, it says a new name here that no one knows, so don't ask me what the name is.

It says, No one knows.

So don't ask.

Deal?

Okay, so that's the first three rewards.

The fourth reward, Church of Thyatira.

Chapter 2, verse 27.

Church of Thyatira, he says, I will rule them with a rod of iron, as with earth and pots are broken in pieces, is even though I myself have received authority from my father, and I will give him the morning star.

So the promise of the church at Thyatira is they will rule the nations of the earth.

Thyatira is the smallest city of these seven churches, the smallest city, but it gets the longest letter.

I just typical God right there.

The smallest city gets the most words.

It was an old military outpost.

It was the kind of the last frontier of the empire until the empire expanded through an era of peace.

So it used to be a very strategic military base.

By the time the book of Revelation was written, it was no longer that significant for military purposes because peace had grown around it.

They didn't have enemies anymore.

By the way, the point of Thyatira, it wasn't going to win the battle.

Thyatira was a kind of a narrow valley.

Uh so a long valley that funneled to this little opening here.

Thyatira was there.

It was supposed to be military outposts to keep invading armies from getting uh over to Rome, from cutting through Asia Minor to get to Rome.

They weren't supposed to win a battle, so the Persians invaded that way.

They weren't supposed to beat the Persians, they were supposed to slow them down long enough for messengers to get to Rome and say, hey, help, attack.

So they were the sacrificial lamb, so to speak, until more reinforcements could get there.

The same thing was happening to them theologically, by the way.

False teachers made a run at Europe through the church at Ephesus, were rebuffed by the church at Ephesus, and so they circled back around and are now coming at the church from inland, from Thyrotira.

Now that the military was not that significant anymore in Thyrotira, they'd been replaced with the textile industry, the purple garments that people wore throughout the Roman Empire, the Roman military war, all came from Thyotira.

This is where the root grew that you could dye things purple with.

Lydia, you see her in the book of Acts, the merchant of purple, this is where she's from.

This is where the textile industry happened.

And I mentioned that because you have to get a picture of what this city was like to appreciate the persecution they had.

This is a former military city that has turned to textiles.

This is like, and they're heavily unionized.

There's a lot written in secular literature about this.

This became a union stronghold.

All these former military guys now have taken jobs with the union, making textiles, and they're per they're persecuting the church.

And they're persecuted by the Gentiles, the Ephesians were, they're persecuted by the Jews, the Smyrnans were, they're persecuted by compromise Pergamum, and now they're persecuted by the unions.

That's the church of Thyratyra.

And God promises them that you, when you withstand this persecution, you will reign with me over the nations.

Do you understand the temptation here?

That if you if you can't get work, you can't feed your family.

And the unions were all it was all religious, you know.

The union, this union would be for this idol, and that union would be for that idol, and you had to worship that idol to be part of that union.

It was like the, you know, the secret handshake kind of so to speak.

It was about an idol that you'd worship.

And if you wouldn't worship the idol, you couldn't get a job making the clothes.

So what are Christians supposed to do there?

They would starve, is what they would do, or they would cave in and join the unions to get work.

And that's what was happening at Thyre Tyre.

They were caving in.

They were caving in.

And Jesus says, You need more back in 19, he says, You need more endurance.

I know that you used to endure.

I know that you're trying to endure, but I want you to press on even more.

There was a false teaching that that came up that said you can practice sexual immorality and worship the idols where you're practicing sexual immorality.

The Christians are making excuses for it, like, you know, God knows that you need these kind of jobs.

God knows this is the way our society is.

But the Lord says, no.

If you persevere, I will give you verse 28, the morning star, verse 27, you will rule the nations with a rod of iron.

To the overcomer, they will rule the nations.

This is picking up in the book of after the exile, the Israelites enter Joshua.

Uh or in the book of Joshua, they enter the promised land.

They're supposed to drive out the nations before them, and you know that never succeeded.

They never successfully drove out the nations before them.

They suffered under those other nations' attacks all throughout the book of Joshua, all throughout the book of Judges, all throughout the book of 1st and 2 Samuel, all throughout the book of 1st and 2 Kings.

They're constantly being thwarted by the Amalekites.

You meet the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15, and you seek them again in the book of Esther.

I mean, that's how successful they were driving out the nations.

The historical books in the Old Testament are bracketed with the Israelites fighting those other nations.

They were never able to overcome.

And here in the book of Revelation, Jesus says if you hold on to Christ, if you hold on to me, if you withstand persecution and you endure and you trust that Christ is worth it at the end, you will succeed where the Israelites did.

And the Israelites never ruled over the other nations.

But when you hold on to Christ, you will.

You will.

And what a promise to this former military church that Jesus is going to come back.

He's not going to have to fight a battle in Thyatira.

No, the believers who are in Thyatira will be rescued and they will rule all the nations of the earth.

Forget the little military outpost looking for a surprise attack.

You will rule the nations of the earth with a rod of iron.

That's a pretty cool promise, right?

That's not a pacifist promise right there.

You're worried about persevering.

Jesus is going to give you a rod of iron to rule the world with it.

The rod of iron, I don't take as decorative, by the way.

I mean, it's a weapon, and you'll be ruling the nations with it.

This leads to the church at Sardis.

Church of Sardis, chapter 3, verse 5.

They are promised that they will be clothed in white.

A little bit about Sardis.

Sardis was a city that was on a massive cliff, and it had been destroyed by a thousand or 1,500-foot cliff, something like that.

Some ridiculously tall cliff.

The city was built right up to it.

It was destroyed by a massive earthquake and basically left to be abandoned because it wasn't very safe or stable.

The Roman government came in and rebuilt the city.

They rebuilt this happened in about 20 AD.

So during the life of Christ, not long before, this is you know, when the book of Revelation is written, it's written to the first generation living in this newly rebuilt city.

This is where the church is.

Everything was new there.

It was Roman white.

Like everything is marble.

There are white pillars.

This was not an old city like some of these other places.

This is a brand new, shiny, sparkly city.

Wealthy people lived there.

They loved Rome because Rome dumped a lot of money into it.

These people were very loyal to Rome because it had just been rebuilt by Rome.

They were uh fancy and but spiritually bankrupt, the city was.

They again thought they were educated, they thought they were powerful, they thought they were influential, they lived in a glorious city, and this is why Jesus says, you know, your city is actually a cemetery.

He picks up on Jesus' language that he used during his own life about uh being a whitewashed tomb.

Like, this city looks so nice and shiny, and that there's no graffiti anywhere.

Neighborhood watch everywhere.

This is a nice, shiny, pretty city, and it's basically a graveyard.

You know, the graveyard has nice tombstones on it.

It's dead bodies all around.

That's what Sardis was like.

And the church, unfortunately, was taking on that appearance.

The church in Sardis was acting dead.

And so, verse 3 of Revelation 3, Jesus tells them, you need to repent.

You need to repent.

In fact, in verse 4, he says, You have very few people in your church who haven't soiled their garments.

That's pretty graphic language to a city that is known for being pristine and white.

Jesus says, You guys are so white on the outside, but I think some of you have soiled your undergarments.

There's only a few of you left who aren't soiled.

But for those, they will walk with me, and this is the promise, in white, for they are worthy.

The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments.

When you conquer this world, he says, I'm going to robe you in white.

This is a promise that Zechariah gives in the book of Zechariah.

And then the book of Zechariah uses the same word picture that your garments will be white because they are washed in the blood of the Lamb.

That's Zechariah's image.

You'll be washed with the blood of the Savior, and that will turn you white.

Through faith in Christ, the blood soaked clothes can be removed, and you will be robed in white.

You will be made pure.

You will have the sin of this world taken away.

It says at the end of verse 5 there that you will never have your name blotted out of the book of life.

I will confess his name before my father and his angels.

You'll be made pure.

On the inside you'll be pure.

There's an African story I heard when I was in Chad about a donkey who's there's donkeys everywhere in Chad, and there is a common story that kids find hilarious.

There's a donkey walking around, and he finds a dead lion, and the lion has been gutted by jackals or hyenas, and so it's just a lion skin.

And so the donkey puts on the lion skin and starts walking around as a very proud donkey, and walking village to village as a proud donkey, and all the other animals are scattering and running and yelling, and the people are running and yelling and screaming, and women are getting their children to hiding, and this donkey is getting so proud that everybody's afraid of him.

It's like the greatest donkey day ever for this proud donkey.

And he gets so excited that he just lets out a loud yelp.

A loud donkey heehaw.

And when I preach this in Chad, I made my translator make the sound a lot.

It was pretty fun.

And then everybody starts laughing and making fun of the donkey, and he feels all sad.

But then one of the jackals came up and told him, I knew it was you all along.

I can always tell it to you by your voice.

And that's a common idiom in Chad that you can tell somebody by their voice.

And what they mean by that is not that you recognize the person's voice.

It means that what comes out of your mouth reveals the real you.

This is the lesson of the church in Sardis.

What's really you on the inside?

It's not how nice you look on the outside, it's not what your exterior looks like.

You know, your house, what makes your house is not how, if you power wash the outside of your house, that's not what's important about your house.

It's about the family that's inside and how you treat each other.

What's important about you is not what kind of clothes you're wearing to church, but what's going on in your heart.

And that's what Jesus is telling the church in Sardis.

What's going on in your heart is what's important.

He will take the filthy garments out you off of you and make you white from the inside out through the blood of the Lamb.

Or you can walk around all prim and proper, but filled with dead bones on the inside, and it's like your clothes might be white, but you are soiled.

The promise here is that your name won't be blotted out of the book of life.

Understand this chronologically, our names are written in the book of life before the creation of the world.

That's described in Malachi chapter 3, verse 16.

Malachi 3:16

It says the book of life was written before the creation of the world.

Revelation 13.8, coming up in the book of Revelation, says the book of life was written before the foundation of time.

And now there's suffering going on in this in the church, and Jesus says, I'm not going to remove your name.

I'm not going to take your name out of the book of life.

It's written in there, and he even says, I'll defend you.

I'll defend you in front of others.

Look at the end of verse 5.

I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.

So Jesus says, He might be in a city that is filled with death, but I know my people there, and I will confess you, you are with me, you are mine, you are mine, you are mine.

They belong to me.

Who's this guy here?

What's he doing here?

And who's gonna vouch for me in heaven?

I was in a long customs line and at the Chad airport, the line went out, the door, it was hours long.

And there's some diplomat on the plane flight.

And one of the army officers saw him and came and got him out of line and brought him forward.

And uh, as he walked by me, I thought, what would happen if I jumped into line with this guy?

Like if I jumped in this little entourage of guys going with the diplomat.

How far could it be?

Could I bypass security and customs and get this hour-long line?

Could I just tag along with him?

Would this actually work?

And I would say I was 70% there into doing it.

So close.

Um, I decided against it.

But then I saw somebody else do that, jump out of line and hop in with him.

And, you know, this was a long flight.

The people on the flight had we knew, we knew each other by this point of the journey.

But I saw this guy jump in with him that was not with him, but he jumped into line with him and he went through customs, and on the other side, the head police officer is like, hey, wait a minute, who is this?

And the diplomat says, Oh, it's okay, he's with me.

I was like, Oh, that could have been me.

That could have been me.

That is a scene that is going to play out in heaven.

Do you understand that?

You're gonna be there, and the angels are gonna say, What is this?

What is this guy?

And Jesus is gonna say, No, he's with me.

His name is in the book of life, it is not blotted out.

I know him.

He's mine.

That's the promise the church of Sardis.

And again, notice the progression.

The tree of life undoes what took place in Genesis chapter one.

The crown of life and no second death undoes what takes place in Genesis three, and as people populate the earth, the manna takes the place of what happened in the book of Exodus, the reign of the nations takes place of what happens through Israel's monarchy, and now you're at the point of conversion, where the Savior comes, the blood of the Lamb comes, you'll be dipped in the blood of the Lamb, you'll be robed in white, you'll be made new, and Jesus Himself will testify.

I know this person, he is with me.

That leads to the church at Philadelphia.

The Church of Philadelphia.

Revelation 3, verses 10 through 12 is the key part of this promise because you've kept my word and my patience endurance.

Revelation 3:10–12

I will keep you from the hour of trial that's going to come on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.

I'm coming soon.

Hold fast, no one will seize your crown.

The one who conquers will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

He'll never go out of it.

I'll write on him the name of my God, the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from God out of heaven, my own name.

Jesus says, if you persevere through this persecution, I will bring you with me into the very temple itself.

I'm not just gonna bring you into the temple.

It says, I'm gonna make you a pillar in the temple.

You see that in verse 12, I'll make you part of this temple.

You're not just gonna be allowed in, which was the promise in the previous church.

You're not just gonna be allowed in like the church in Sardis, you're gonna be more than allowed in.

You're gonna be part of the building.

You're gonna be a pillar of the building.

The temple itself.

This is speaking of the church age, of course, where we are the temple of God.

And Jesus says, if you are with me, you are part of the church, you are part of the temple of God itself.

Of course, I'm not gonna forget you, of course I'm not gonna cast you off.

You're part of my own temple.

Of course, God and glory dwells in a temple.

This is a way of him saying that we, through faith in Christ, are part of God's own house.

We can't be any closer to him than in his house.

I guess you can be closer than in this house.

You could be a pillar of his house, and that's what he says you'll be.

When you overcome this world, you will be built into the house itself.

Now, this is, I think, speaking of the church age where we are built into God's house.

There's obviously a reference to the rescue, I think, of the rapture that happens here in verse 10, because you've kept it with my word with patient endurance.

I will keep you from the hour of trial that's coming on the whole world.

Now, this is a promise, of course.

The hour of trial is described by Jesus throughout his ministry.

It's speaking of the great tribulation, the Antichrist, the time of trial that is about to be described in the book of Revelation, starting in chapter 6.

There is an hour of trial that's coming upon the whole world.

The rest of the book is going to take over.

Again, they would read this and read the rest of the book.

They know the hour of trial is what's happening in Revelation 6, and you're going to say, yes, but they're all dead by that.

Well, yes, mission accomplished.

He rescued them from it.

But more to the point, it's not just that they died before the rapture happened.

You know, we're all still alive, the rapture hasn't happened.

We might die before that.

This is a promise that motivates obedience.

That when you persevere, like all of these churches, you recognize that all these rewards are for every Christian.

It doesn't make sense to say that only the Christians in Sardis have their robes made white.

It doesn't make any sense.

All of these promises are for all of the believers, all of the church age.

And this promise is that there's a tribulation that's about to come in a few chapters, starting in chapter six, when the seals are opened, and you won't have to endure that tribulation if you're holding on to Christ.

That's, I think, of course, a promise of the rapture.

The Lord will remove that you won't be there in verse 10.

He'll be removed from the earth.

I will keep you from.

That word from means out of.

Some people say I want to say it means through, that he'll keep you through the hour of tribulation that's going to come on the whole world.

That's not a good promise.

No, it's the I'm going to keep you out of it.

Not in the I'm gonna I'm gonna hold you in the middle of it.

And I could I could spend a lot more time talking about this.

I preached a whole sermon on this a while ago.

It's on our website if you're interested in that.

But no, there's there's so many reasons why this is talking about being kept out of the other places.

This kind of language is used throughout the New Testament always means to be kept out of something and doesn't mean to be kept through something.

It's a promise that God will take us out of that trial that is about to come on the whole world.

He'll rescue us by removing us from the world.

And you see this hour of tribulation in Revelation 7, Revelation 13, and there's people that die in the tribulation, so you think that doesn't sound like they're being protected from it.

They died.

Well, this is because that tribulation happens after the church is raptured.

And that's why you see the martyrs, it doesn't look like they were kept out of it, they died in it.

Well, the promises to the church is here that they will be removed from the earth before that happens.

It's the rescue of the rapture.

There is an hour of testing.

That word testing means to reveal the quality, not to improve the quality.

There's two different Greek words.

Some form of testing is for improving the quality, some form of testing is for revealing the quality.

And you understand this if you're an educator.

Sometimes you give tests to help your students get better at the content.

Sometimes you give tests to realize what your students don't know.

The Greek has different words for this.

This is the second word.

The hour of testing that's gonna fall on the whole world reveals the lack of quality the world has.

Christians will not be subject to that test.

Do you understand that?

God's not going to examine you to see if you have what it takes to get into heaven.

You have what it takes to get into heaven because you're a pillar in the church.

You were kept out of that exam.

And that it and that temptation is gonna come on the whole earth, not just the church in Philadelphia, not just the church in Laodicea or the church in Sardis, on the whole earth.

That phrase the whole earth is used 11 times in the book of Revelation.

It always refers to people in the book of Revelation who are experiencing the wrath of God landing right on their heads.

It's only used of the tribulation period.

Obviously, the church is not spared from every tribulation in the world.

This whole series of letters is written to Christians that are suffering all kinds of very real persecution.

This is not a promise that Christians will avoid all persecution.

I've had people tell me that, like, oh, this is not about the pre-tribulation or rapture, because of course Christians endure persecution.

Yeah, no kidding.

All seven letters are to Christians that are being persecuted.

It's obviously not a promise that you won't face any persecution.

It is a promise that Christians will be kept out of a specific period of persecution that will cover the whole earth, that is unlike any the world has ever seen before, or will see again, and that is about to be described in two chapters.

I realized I said I wasn't gonna go into it all and then spent the last five minutes going into it all, but I feel pretty strongly about that.

That's the church in Philadelphia.

They are promised.

Notice where we are now.

We're in the rapture, we're in the reigning with God in his kingdom.

That he says the new Jerusalem, the book of Revelation, you're gonna see the new Jerusalem again in Revelation 20.

It's gonna come out of heaven down to earth where God will dwell with man.

So do you see how in these seven letters they started in the garden and they're gonna end at the book of Revelation with the new Jerusalem descending down onto earth?

The whole scripture is bracketed in these seven letters that we have eternal life with the tree of life.

We have the manna that will feed us, we have the rod ruling the nations, we have the robes as we are saved and purified and made righteous by God.

We have the ability to reign with Jesus Christ as a pillar in his temple, and now we have the rapture, we're removed from the earth and ushered into the kingdom where he will reign in the New Jerusalem forever and ever, coming down out of heaven.

Those are the promises if we hold on to him.

But there is a seventh promise, the church at Laodicea.

The church at Laodicea, this is the lukewarm church.

This is the worst of the churches.

The churches are in kind of descending order here.

Um, Laodicea, you know, known for the cold water and the hot water, of course, and when the water mixes together, the hot water was good for medicine, the cold water good for drinking, the lukewarm water good for nothing.

3.16 says, I'll spit you out of my mouth if your spiritual life is like that.

Uh you're actually wretched, verse 17.

You're pitiful, you're poor, you're blind, you're naked.

You know, you guys need to get saved as we do in the church at Laodicea.

You guys gotta get you guys gotta get saved.

You know, forget about perseverance.

You've got to come to faith.

They locked him out of church.

Imagine that kind of mistake.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

I mean, that's how despicable this church is.

They have nothing to do with Christ.

He's locked out.

And Jesus is saying, I mean, let me in.

And whoever opens the door for me, I'll forgive you.

I'll forgive you for your apostasy, I'll forgive you for your blindness and your poor, wretched nakedness, I'll forgive you for all of that.

And more than that, he says in verse 21 the one who conquers, I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered, and sat down with my Father on his throne.

This is how the book of Revelation ends, with Jesus surrendering all things to the Father, so all things can be all and all.

That's 1 Corinthians 15, where all things at the end of time, at the end of the kingdom, everything will be surrendered back to the Father.

The eternity will reign over all of the souls of those who fell asleep in Christ and are resurrected.

They're the resurrected bodies, and we will live in heaven with the Lord forever and ever and ever.

That's the end of these promises.

Again, the progression.

From the Garden of Eden, where we lose eternal life, we gain eternal life through Christ.

We gain, we have the fear of second death removed from us as we have confidence in eternal life.

We have the manna that God will provide for us.

We don't live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the Father's mouth, we have the authority over the nations as the gospel goes around the world.

We have what Israel never had, and ultimately in the kingdom we will rule over nations ourselves.

We have a new nature as Jesus clothes us in white, saved by the blood of the Lamb.

We have the promise that we will be sanctified in more and more to the image of Christ, that we'll be part of the church, the pillar of God, or the pillar of the temple of God, his very self, that we will then be in the temple with him as he descends on the earth and reigns over his kingdom, ultimately ending in the eternal reality, that we will be with both the Father and the Son, it says at the end of Revelation 3.21, forever and ever and ever.

We will rule the nations on the earth.

We'll be with Jesus, worshiping him, sitting under the Father's authority for all times.

These are the rewards for overcomers.

Is there anything better that God could offer us to motivate holy living?

Is there any other, is there any better way to over and what else could he have?

Oh, and if you resist sin, I'll give you a million dollars.

I mean, that would that be more effective than this?

And if you resist sin, I'll take away whatever sickness you have.

You you won't have any more sicknesses and no more cancer if you resist sin.

Would that be a better promise than these?

Or you'll get the job that you wanted.

Would that be a better promise?

Or whatever your main prayer request is, your wayward son, he'll he'll come back.

Would that be a better promise, even?

I mean, there is no better promise than this.

This is covering the scope of everything in the Bible.

It's the fulfillment of every chapter of the Bible.

It is promised to those who overcome this world through faith in Christ.

What more could he offer?

There's nothing more.

And so, if persecution comes to you, know that it is worth it to hold on to Christ because there are riches that he offers us.

And when you see people around the world suffering for the gospel, know that for them it's worth it because of the reality of eternal life that they'll have.

And I pray that you would recognize that it's worth it.

As you're tempted to sin, sometimes for us, it's just the temptation to sin, and you think, I want to sin so badly.

Know that there is a reward for those who persevere through temptation.

Of course, when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who forgives us of our sin.

You don't lose these rewards by sinning.

The point of these rewards is to motivate you to withstand the temptation to sin, though.

To hold on to Christ and treasure Him, knowing that all of the Bible is fulfilled and that you'll have that experience of reigning with Jesus over all of it when you overcome this world.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Father, we're grateful that you have promised us everything from garden to garden, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which Adam and Eve sinned and ate and led us into sin.

The tree of life where we will never fear death again.

You know, she'll take care of all of our spiritual needs through the heavenly manna that you'll provide us for all time.

There will never be a morning in heaven where we grow up and don't have your word.

There will never be a moment in heaven where we feel unprovided for.

And believers will dwell on the earth with the nations in harmony with your purpose for the world, worshiping you.

This world is so defiled on the inside and can be so pretty on the outside, and we see that you will cleanse our defilement and robe us in white and wash with the blood of the Lamb.

That's a reality now through faith in Christ that you have changed us from the inside out.

You've made us a new creation.

And we're so thankful for that.

Now we know that you'll never deny us.

You've adopted us, you call us brothers and sisters, you call us sons and daughters, you've grafted us into the temple itself or the pillar in the temple.

We're invited by name.

You wrote our names in the book, and you will never erase them.

And when we stand before you in heaven, you will welcome us into heaven, you will vouch for us, the angels will marvel, the angels will be shocked, and yet you'll welcome us in.

And we know for all time that we will never be separated from you.

We will dwell with you, reign with you, rule with you, worship you in the holy city, the new Jerusalem forever and ever and ever.

The millennial kingdom will be in the rear view mirror, and we will never grow tired of worshiping you.

Lord, there's nothing better you could offer us.

There's no other better promise you could give us.

So I pray for this congregation that's gathered here tonight.

I pray that they would embrace the reality that you are worth it.

These rewards that you offer, they motivate our endurance.

We want to withstand temptation.

We don't want to fear death.

We want to embrace it as a welcome friend.

We see the riches of this world, but we don't want to be tempted by it.

We don't want to get stuck in Vanity Fair.

We want to press forward to the place where we will experience these realities forever and ever.

Give us the grace to do that.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.