REVELATION SERIES - Week 4 - September 9, 2026

Alright.

You already so we're uh glad you're here.

We're we're starting uh the second lesson.

So um hope you got all the information and you got a lot of it.

You should have got the video, you should have got the audio, you should have got the slides, even if you clicked on those, you got the notes, and uh I don't know, there's four or five things.

So let's open in a word of prayer and then we'll jump into it.

So, Father, thanks again.

It's with joy we gather uh around your word, and especially the book of Revelation, as you have promised us, uh that we read about last week that there's a blessing that comes from studying this.

But it's a difficult book, and uh you've also promised us that you're not a god of confusion, and that's why we're here, because we want to clarify some things, and and we just thank you for it.

We just pray that you work in our minds and work in our hearts, and thank you for Stephen and his ministry, and thank you for everybody here tonight.

It's not an accident that we're here together, and we thank you for that.

Thanks again for all you're gonna teach us in Christ's name, amen.

Okay, all right.

You've got uh you've got your summary notes.

Now remember, you know, when I when I go through these, or David, when he goes through them, we're we're just going through the skeleton part of it.

Okay, we're we're summarizing it.

If you want the meat and the bones and all the extra information that's added, you've got to read it and you've got to listen to it.

Stephen adds so much more detail.

And uh so you can come and you're gonna get some stuff with just going through it like we are, but you're gonna get so much more if you actually go through it on your own.

You you have from Friday to Wednesday, you've got plenty of time.

No excuses.

If you remember last week, uh we finished up uh this part here, the outline, uh, in verse 19.

He said the book of Revelation is divided into three parts.

God has divided it, and this is why it's not confusing.

And if you remember, he said, Therefore, write the things which you have seen, and that was what?

Past tense, the things which are right now or right at that present time for him, and the things which will take place after these things.

Okay, which is future.

And uh we'll just summarize that a little bit because that's the breakdown of the book.

If you don't understand that breakdown and that outline, God's given us an outline for the book of Revelation, and it's very clear.

So let's let's look at this.

Here it is, the things that you saw.

Okay, now Stephen talked about this.

What was it up to up to verse 19?

What was it that he had seen?

Up to verse 19.

We talked about this last week.

What did he see?

A glorified Christ, right?

He's standing there, he's got his hair, and he's got a sword out of his mouth, and his eyes are like the sun, and he's got a breastplate, and you know, all this stuff.

And he's got his hands out, and what's in his hands?

Stars, and what do they represent?

Angels over the churches.

And then he's walking around in how many lampstands.

And they represent what?

The churches.

And I told you that in verse 20, right?

There wasn't any guessing.

It was all very clear.

Okay?

And what did that represent?

That he walks around and he's standing and he's holding these angels in his hand and he's standing in these churches.

What does that represent?

Authority.

He's in control.

He's in charge.

He walks around in his churches and he controls.

Okay?

So that's what we looked at last week.

Those are the things he saw.

Now we go into the things that are.

Now, what are the things that are?

Okay?

The things that the things are, and then also where so we know where the first part is, and we know where the first part ends.

It's it's right here in 19.

Now, what are the things that are?

Now we're going into the second part, which is the things that are.

And we know that that starts in chapter 2.

Because if chapter 1 is the things that were, now we're in the things that are.

But the question is, how far does that go?

How far?

You're jumping ahead.

Why are you jumping ahead?

Because you've already done it.

That's exactly right.

How do you know where the things that are ends?

Because he says the things after these things.

So you have to go and find out.

Where does he say the things after these things?

And if somebody's got Revelation 4.1, what does it say?

If somebody will read it, 4-1.

After this, I looked, and there in heaven was an open door.

Okay.

Anybody got a different version?

After this.

Yeah.

That where he says there, after, he's saying after these things.

That's where it ends.

Okay?

In chapter 4.

This is where the after these things start.

Yeah, after this or after these things.

So he this is the marker.

So this idea of uh the things that are, it's gonna be in chapter, starting in chapter 2 and chapter 3, and then it's gonna end, and then the next phase is gonna be right after that, starting in chapter 4.

Okay?

So those are the three parts.

After these things I looked and behold, that's what it says in 4.1.

So here's the outline.

The things you saw, chapter 1, the things that are, chapter 2 and 3, which is what we're looking at.

The things after these things is 4 through 22.

The things that are.

Now, here's one of the questions is how long, how long is the R?

We know it started right here, back here, when he saw this, but how long does it go on?

How long is the R part?

That's something we'll discover as we go, as we keep going.

Okay.

Let's look at this.

The second thing I want to talk about.

The letters, remember, they were written to how many churches?

Seven.

That represents what?

100%.

All of the churches.

All of the churches are represented.

Now we know there's more than seven churches, but God picks out the number seven to represent the church, all of the church.

Okay?

And he lists them, right?

He lists those seven churches.

The led us to the churches.

Um, is the church still in existence today?

Yes.

So theoretically, we are still in the R part.

The R part started at Pentecost, and we are still in the R part.

So when we read these seven letters to these seven churches, these are letters written to us today.

But they were also written to people a thousand years ago, you know, or twelve hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago.

So let's go through this, and uh we want to mention this about the churches.

They are it there are three parts to reading these churches.

If you got this from the notes in Stephen's thing, there are three parts.

The first part, and it's in your notes there, it's a literal historical church.

These seven churches literally were real churches in those real cities, and they were historical churches.

Real people went to those churches.

That's what I mean in there.

Literal historical, real letters to real first century churches.

Okay?

So that's the first way you have to interpret this.

He was writing this letter, these letters to these churches, and and we'll tell we'll talk about what he went through, what he says to them all as we go through.

But that's the first thing.

Literal historical churches.

The second thing, because they're all different.

They're all different.

And we're gonna we're gonna actually look at them and you're gonna see how different they all are.

The second thing is they're universal.

These seven churches are universal.

Now, what does that mean?

What does it mean when he says universal?

These seven churches are universal.

No ch no no no cheating here.

Well, he said it because he saw it up there, and it's forever timeless.

It means from that moment on till now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All churches.

He's saying what he's saying here when he means universal throughout the history of time, you could always find an Ephesus.

You can always find a Laodicea.

And we'll we'll look at the characteristics of a Laodicea.

You can always find a Smyrna.

Okay.

And we'll look at next week, we'll look at what a Smyrna church is.

But all throughout history, you should have been able to find one of those type churches.

Okay?

So this is this is what we mean, universal and timeless.

Today you could go to a Laodicea church.

You don't want to, but you could go to one.

You could go to a Smyrna church, and we'll look at what a Smyrna church is.

But you should be able to find these churches all over.

Okay?

So that's the second thing.

I think uh I think Stephen brought out the idea that uh, oh, I can't remember what I was gonna say.

Most oh, this is this is I remember what he said.

He said that most time the book of Revelation is taught.

This is generally what's taught about in the book of Revelation is the churches.

And and and you it stops right here.

You talk about the literal churches, you talk about the universal church, that we're all one of those, and then it stops.

You do not go to the next step.

The next one.

Now remember, Book of Revelation is a prophetic book.

And this next layer that we're gonna look at is a prophetic layer, and it's pretty much ignored or not recognized.

So let's look at what this third layer is.

And if we want to look at this a little bit, but if you notice, and Stephen talked about this, the seven churches, here they are listed.

Uh you have Ephesus, Smyrna, uh Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

Now he brings out, now that's not by accident.

That's not by accident that God picked these seven churches.

Remember, the Corinthian church, what about the Thessalonian church?

What about the church at Jerusalem?

I mean, why did he pick these seven?

Anybody know?

They're in the same general area.

Yeah, same general area, all different.

But if you notice, if you go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, they're what?

Clockwise.

Clockwise, which possibly brings in the idea of time.

And what is God trying to tell?

Maybe, you know.

What's he telling us here?

And Stephen brought out the idea.

Yeah, but uh, you know, the the clock wasn't invented until way, way after this.

You remember what Stephen said about that?

Sundials.

Yeah, the sundial.

And by the way, in the in that hemisphere, the sundials went to the right.

So this actually, they knew they probably knew about this.

So what this is representing is a time, a time element.

Now we're adding in a time element.

And this is that prophetic element.

And I I I had never heard of this for a long time.

And I think somebody mentioned last lesson about uh Dale when he was here.

He taught about Dr.

Bennett taught this.

The same thing.

Yeah.

And so does so does the book that I showed him last week.

Walter.

This is not new.

Well, anyway.

But it is new from 150 years ago.

Yeah.

So the prophetic, this is eschatological.

Uh these geographic, these letters run clockwise, suggesting that the map, the seven stages of the entire church age.

So this is these churches represent the entire church age.

Now, are we in the church age?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, we are.

This was really not discovered until about 150 years ago.

And that makes sense, right?

Because it's only in retrospect as history's gone by, as his the time, the history of time has gone by, it's only after the fact you can look back and go, man, oh man.

Because now you have the whole time.

You know, you got almost 2,000 years of history.

So it makes sense.

This would not have made sense to the Ephesus church, to the first church, or even the second church, or even the third church.

So they were, they were not, they couldn't under, they wouldn't have understood it even if they could have.

Okay?

Only us, as we look back, does it make sense.

And I think, I think Stephen bore out that that's on purpose.

Does anybody remember what he said in his notes?

Why, why he didn't want them to understand this up front.

Does anybody remember?

Because if they'd realized how long they had to go before Christ returns, they wouldn't be as anxious as anybody.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

They wouldn't be expectantly looking for Jesus Christ like we are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They would be complacent, lazy.

So he he has this graphic here.

So this is the church age.

And we have Ephesus first, and then we go all the way to Laodicea.

Now, could you this is the whole expanse of the church age.

Now, could you have imagined if you were over here?

And we know that Christ is going to come back at the end of this.

Could you imagine if you knew he wouldn't come back?

So they did so that he they never got to know it.

Now, what's important is there is a beginning and an end to the church.

That's that's what that's one thing this thing tells you.

There is a beginning to the church and there is an end to the church.

Okay?

And it starts at this one and it ends in this one.

That's the first thing you gotta get out of this.

The second, and by the way, it ends before you go into chapter four.

Because remember, what's chapter four?

After these things.

So something happens with this, something happens with this before we go into chapter four and on.

And by the way, that's what the book of Revelation is, and that four through sixteen is about that ending.

It's all about that transition.

Okay?

So something happens to the church.

And if you look in chapter four on, you'll never see the word church again.

Now you'll you'll see the word saints, and you'll see other words that you think might be related to the church, but they're not.

You never ever see the word church again.

This is it.

Two and three, then it's gone.

Until he comes back.

Okay?

So keep that in mind.

The second thing, wouldn't it be nice to know where where we are today on this?

I mean, wouldn't you would it wouldn't it be nice to know?

Wouldn't it be and and for some reason in the last 150 years, this has now suddenly opened up.

Why is that?

That's because God always prepares his people for things that are gonna come.

It's not more revelation, it's just more illumination.

There you go.

It's illumination.

He hasn't added revelation, it's always been there.

It's just that as time's gone by, we get illuminated to see things that we couldn't see before.

And this is something that we couldn't see before.

And we are right here at the we are here at the end.

We're way down here.

Okay.

That should change you.

Okay.

Everybody got that?

Make a lot of sense?

Pretty exciting stuff.

Okay, let's go on.

So now we're going to get into the actual first letter, and it's to the church at Ephesus, and it always follows the same.

All of the letters are designed exactly the same.

There's always a name, which represents something.

There's always a salutation.

There's always a commendation, you're doing something good.

There's always a condemnation, you're doing something bad.

There's always an exhortation or a warning, and there's always a promise to the believer, to the individual believer in that church.

So everyone we look at is broken.

We're going to see the same thing in every single one of the churches.

Okay?

Let's look at the first one.

So the salutation in this one is, and by the way, every remember, remember in chapter one, remember the description of Jesus?

Remember the description of Jesus?

You know, he's walking around in his church, he's got stars, and he's got a sword out of his mouth, and he's got this and that.

The salutation to each one of the different churches pulls something out of that description.

Now, what is it that he pulls out?

What is it that he pulls out for the church in Ephesus?

Look at it.

Yeah, look at it.

To the angel, here is what we're going to look at.

To the angel of the church in Ephesus, right?

The one, look at this, the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

Where did you get that?

Where did you get that?

Chapter 1.

He pulled out that part of his description, and he's talking.

So somehow this Ephesus church has something to do with that.

Something that the church, this particular church, has something to do with his authority and his control.

That's why he put that.

That's why he put that there to them.

He says, I know the deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men.

You put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false.

You have perseverance, and you have endured for my name's sake, and have not grown weary.

But I have this against you.

Here's the condemnation.

That you have left your first love.

Verse 5, therefore, therefore, here's the exhortation.

Therefore, remember from where you have fallen and repent.

Do the deeds you did at first, or else or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.

Verse six, yet this you do have, that you have hate you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitians, which I also hate.

He who has ears to let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.

That's his letter to this literal church.

Okay?

So let's break it down and talk about it.

The word um the word Ephesus means desirable.

That's what the word means.

Smyrna means something else.

Pergamon means something else, and we'll get to them as we go through.

But it's a desirable.

Ephesus was in a wealthy port city.

A lot of sailors came through there.

I mean, think of it like Los Angeles.

Big port city, you know, lots of wealth, lots of not sailors, but a lot of people there, a lot of business, a lot of commerce.

Okay, a lot of bad stuff, also.

But this is where the church was.

And there was only one.

There was only one church, Ephesus.

Not like You could go down the street to the second church of Ephesus.

And the third church and the fourth church.

And there was just one, Ephesus.

This was it, right here.

Okay?

It was a trade route.

It was the home to the temple of Otimus and to the one of the first century's most prominent churches.

Paul, John, and Timothy all were involved in this church.

Okay?

So what's this, what is the commendation?

What's the commendation?

What does he tell them that they're doing well?

You tell me.

They're not fitting up with evil men.

No.

And the Nicolatians.

Yeah, yeah.

So let's.

The first one was uh the apostles, right?

What was he doing?

What why did he bring out the apostles deal?

What does he say?

You cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles.

Now, I'm not going to develop that, but if you listen to the lesson, he he expanded that as to what was an apostle.

Who was an apostle?

Do we have apostles today?

If you go to Africa, they do.

What are the qualifications for an apostle?

Yeah, they had to have seen Jesus.

They had to do miraculous things like raising people from the dead.

And Stephen bought out the whole idea.

See, at this time, they were, remember, we're in the apostolic age.

Because John is still around.

He's one of the last ones, but he's still around.

We're still in this apostolic age.

When he he was the last one, he wrote the last book, and we're at the end.

That's the end of the apostolic age.

And by the way, he writes the last book.

But there were people running around saying they were apostles.

And Stephen bought out in 2 Corinthians that he wrote to the, these guys were running around the Corinthian church saying they were apostles, and Paul, he's not an apostle.

And Paul writes them a letter.

And did anybody remember what he says?

Mm-mm-mm.

Anybody remember?

He says, those guys, tell them I'm coming.

And they better be able to raise people from the dead.

I mean, this is what was happening.

But this church was what?

Really good at doing what?

Yeah, making sure.

Fighting against it, these false apostles.

It says that they were perseverance.

They toiled.

They did a good job at calling out these guys and rebuking them and not letting them get in.

Okay?

Now we we don't have apostles today, but we have people that teach us.

And you've got to be able to, we have to do the same thing.

We have to be Bereans.

We have to test them.

We have to check.

You know, if they're off, they need to be confronted.

We need to do the same thing.

We can't just accept them for who they are.

And they are not.

And you found them to be false.

Okay?

Also, it says there in three that you have perseverance and have endured.

So these, I mean, think about these.

They cared about the word of God, they persevered, they kept on keeping on, even in hardship and everything.

And they, I mean, and I think Stephen brought out the idea of Job.

Perseverance.

Endurance.

We need that.

Just think if Job had not endured, you wouldn't even have the rest of the book.

Perseverance is part of the Christian life.

These guys did that.

They endured, they persevered.

They worked hard and they toiled.

Now, it also talks about the Nicolaitians in verse 6.

Those were also.

Anybody remember what Stephen said about who the Nicolaitians were?

Pharisee class.

Kind of like a Pharisee class, yeah, but these were people.

The actual word Nicolaatians, and there's debate over this, of course, was ruling over the people.

The name Nicolaitian means rule over the people.

And he seems to think that what was creeping into the church was this clergy and laity, this separation, that certain people were more godly than others.

And if you wanted to hear to God, you had to go through them, which is what the Pharisees were doing.

You gotta come to us.

But weren't the Nacalatians also people that um believed they were gonna be going to heaven, but they could do every perverse thing in the world?

I don't know.

I mean maybe immoral.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, as I've studied it, that's what it talks about.

Yeah, yeah.

Could be.

So okay.

So that is their commendation.

What is their condemnation?

They've left their first love.

They've left their first love.

And Stephen brings out who who in the Christian life, who is the first love?

Who is there's no, there's only one person that can be.

Jesus Christ.

Your first love.

Now you gotta remember now, because what is it they did wrong?

Because here they were.

They were persevering, they were enduring, they were they were fighting against false teaching with these apostles.

I mean, it looked like they were doing a heck of a job.

Look at the commendations, you know.

They were fighting against these people that were coming in to divide them and make uh different layers of you know, clergy and laity.

But so what's it doing it on their own and not through the spirit?

Yeah.

Now he links this, their condemnation, they've lost their first love.

So what is what is that, what does that mean to lose your first love?

What and Stephen brings this out, and it's related to the very first part where Jesus, remember, he what's he doing?

He's this salutation at the beginning, what's he got in his hand?

The stars, and he's in the lampstands, and he's in charge and he's ruling.

Now I don't know if I don't know how it got you, but I listened to this part and I was pretty convicted.

Yep.

That's why I said, are y'all sitting in the same seats as last week?

Because he brings that up in his message.

How do you know if you've lost your your first love?

How do you know if you've lost you're an autopilot?

You're an autopilot.

It's self-satisfying.

You're here at church because you you're doing it because you've done it for so long.

That it's just what we do.

And you've forgotten why you do what you do.

You're tired.

I'm already busy as a term I yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they were busy, right?

Persevering, doing all this stuff.

But if it worked.

Are we all a little bit like that?

Can you get like that in a marriage?

Just becomes room roommates.

Carrie and I have this saying all the time.

I don't want to become roommates.

Don't want to become routine.

Just don't want to, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't think I need it.

Despite, let me read this.

Despite all their activity, the church's devotion has shifted from loving Christ Himself to comfortable routine, self-satisfied Christianity.

Busy but on autopilot.

Are you doing a lot of things?

Yeah.

Why are you doing them?

Well, I don't know, because it's what we do.

Why are you doing it that way?

Well, because that's the way they did it before.

Well, where where's the room there for the Holy Spirit to say, I want you to go over here and do this?

Well, no, we do we can't do that.

We we don't do it like that.

Are you getting adrift?

Because this is what was happening to this these guys.

You know, you gotta remember, they started off on fire, they started off on Pentecost.

And they were waiting, they were expecting Christ to come any minute, and it and now it's been, you know, 90 years, a long time.

Guess what happens?

Yeah, we got farmed.

Just oh man.

You better sink that.

Now we'll start watching Wednesday night football.

They forgot what church was all about and why they do church.

They forgot that he was in charge.

He was an authority in the church and in your individual life.

He is in charge of your life.

It's no accident that you're here tonight.

It's no accident that when you fly somewhere, there's somebody sitting next to you.

It's no accident that if you get in an accident.

What's God doing?

Are you like that?

When you live like that as a Christian, it's exciting.

It should be.

Because God's working.

But you you you know what I mean?

This is what they had forgot.

Look what he says the remedy is.

What's the remedy?

Repent and go back.

Right?

Repent and go back to what you did it the first time.

So here's the question.

When did it all just become routine?

You need to go back and look.

When did all this just become something I just do on Sunday morning?

And we were no longer led by the Spirit.

Yeah.

No, there you go.

No longer led by the Spirit.

I love this verse.

I put this in here, 2 Corinthians 2.4.

It says that Christ always leads us in his triumph.

And it says that you're an aroma of death to death to some, and you're an aroma of life to life to others.

You know what that means?

2 Corinthians 2.14, it's in that area, it says we are an aroma of Christ.

Wherever we go, we're an aroma of Christ.

Now you it's not like I go, oh man, you smell like Christ.

You know, it's not target, it's a metaphor.

But no matter where you're going and who you're contacting, you're having an impact.

That or that's there's something in your life coming out, and you're either making people close go closer to hell, death to death, or you're drawing them to Christ, life to life.

You're having an impact, no matter what.

Did you realize that?

Now that's exciting.

And this is what he's wanting them to go back to remember.

That's witnessing.

That's you just go be talk to people.

This is what he wants them to go back to.

This is what he wants them to remember.

Did they do it?

What was his threat?

What did he say was going to happen?

If you don't do this, I'm going to remove your lampstand.

Did he remove the lampstand?

Yes, he did.

And and you remember what Stephen said happened?

Historically?

Now we're in the eschatological historical side.

What happened to Ephesus?

Oh, by the way, here it is.

It was in a it was a harbor flourishing.

The harbor filled in with silt, kind of like New Orleans, you know, just filled in and filled in, and now you go to Ephesus and it's miles and miles inland, and it just just it just what happened to the church?

It just disappeared.

You think you think if we don't do the right thing here, you think God could shut down this church?

Or if he can silt up Ephesus, he could shut down this church.

That's a warning.

That's an that's a warning to us that we wanna we wanna be in the spirit, we want to stay close.

Okay?

The promise to the overcomer, this is the last part.

What is that promise?

Even though you may, this is a promise to people, individuals, even though the church may be be taken away, being taken away, even though God may be dissolving it, what happens if you're a true committed believer and you're in that church?

What's the promise?

Well, this is the last part there where he says, to him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life.

So even though you may be a part of an Ephesus church, as long as you're, I think you're trying to do it, you're you're doing your part, you know what?

It's okay.

You're still gonna overcome.

Your salvation is secure, you're gonna eat from the tree of life.

That's actually in Revelation 22.

We'll talk about that.

Did you know you're gonna eat fruit from the tree of life?

Did you know that there's leaves that or fruit that are come every month?

I thought there was no time in heaven.

Well, we thought that's a that's a rabbit trail.

Individual believers forward to guaranteed eternal reward, regardless of any local church's outcome.

Okay?

So it doesn't matter what church, it doesn't matter.

I mean, some people are gonna be in a Smyrna church, other people are in a Laodicean church, and and real believers in all these churches.

But they're guaranteed they're gonna eat from the tree of life.

And by the way, every church we look at is the same promise to the individual believer.

Hey, let's back up just a minute on the verse before.

When he's saying I'm gonna remove your lampstand, he doesn't say I'm gonna remove your salvation.

No.

I'm gonna remove you from being effective in the church today as you are to the non-believers.

You're gonna become ineffective because you've lost.

And remember what that name, emphasis, desirable, he says you've lost your desire.

And you know, when I think about that, I go to Psalms 37, 4 about making Jesus the desire of our heart, then he'll give us what we everything that we ever want.

And you know, Dr.

Bennett said this before.

He said, look, if the Holy Spirit left the churches, 80% of them still operate the same way.

And that's sad but true.

So are you getting it?

Are you getting what he's trying to say here?

This is just one.

Now, what what is the prophetic layer?

You know, because as hopefully, as you go through each of these lessons, you're gonna see that this is actually true.

I mean, if it's not, if we can't look back in history and see certain events that link, that it that kind of in the letter itself, there's certain things that show that on the timeline that this is actually what happened.

You know, if that if we can't see that, then the whole I this whole theory will collapse.

But you're gonna it's gonna blow you away some of the things you're gonna see in each of these different churches.

And you're gonna go, oh my gosh.

So he he puts this timeline.

Um Ephesus represents the church first era and he calls it the apostolic church.

Why why did he why do you think he called it the apostolic church?

When did it end?

John.

He wrote the last what?

Book.

And now we don't need apostles anymore.

He talked about that in his lesson.

Don't need them anymore because we've got what?

We've got the Bible, we've got the canon.

Got the first book all the way to the last book.

Complete.

Don't need it anymore.

And this is anywhere from 30 to 100 AD.

And by the way, as we go through these, they're not necessarily divided equally.

Some may be longer, some may be shorter, some will have different characteristics.

But there should be markers as we're going through these.

There'll be certain markers that you should be able to relate to in history that will show you that when this started, when this ended.

Anybody know the second church?

How do we know this church also ended here?

Stephen brought this out.

How did God shake them out of their complacency?

Persecution.

Persecution.

Domitian was the first one.

He came in and he started killing Christians.

What's that gonna do?

Is that gonna shake you out of your self uh, what does he call it?

Self-satisfied Christianity?

Is that gonna, when they come and they chop your head off?

Is that gonna?

You know, I I don't know what it was.

But guess what the next church's name is?

Smyrna.

Smyrna.

You know what Smyrna comes from?

Death.

Myrrh and frankincense comes from the word myrrh.

Myrrh and frankincense was when people died, they sprinkled them with myrrh and frankincense.

It's Smyrna, it's death.

God now starts the next one, which is that it's the persecuted church.

We now go into an era of the persecuted church.

And it also shakes them out of this one.

The Christians have to scatter, right?

And the gospel spreads, and now they're getting shaken up.

Marked by sound apostolic teaching, rapid gospel growth, and endurance under Jewish persecution, but drifting.

They drifted by the centuries in toward Gentile Roman comfort.

You've got to remember that the Jews, the church, the original church mostly was made up of Jews.

A lot of them had died out, and now all these Romans and Gentiles were in the church, and they had a whole different thing.

They bought in all this other stuff.

And so it slowly drifted from what it was.

It drifted from its first love.

Just like you can in a marriage.

You can drift.

And you can forget why you're even there.

You can forget the put what our purpose is.

I think Stephen talked a lot about, you know, how we we have ministries and we do things to get people so that like feeding them or clothing them or like a wanas.

What's awanas all about?

Is it just to play games?

I mean, it could end up becoming that.

We don't even talk about Christ.

That's what he's talking about.

We start these ministries and it's to get people, but then it's we gotta give them, it's to eventually talk to them about Christ.

But eventually what happens is we forget that.

We forget that's the purpose, and now we've just got a sports program on our own hand.

Right?

And that's how we shift.

We shift into this new one.

Okay.

That's it for the bones.

Okay, the skimming over.

Any thought?

Any concerns, questions?

Uh anything you learned, anything you didn't learn, anything you you hated?

Hey, Ian, go go back up.

There was one of the slides that you missed going back up on that prophetic part.

Yeah, come on back down.

Going back down.

Right there.

Come on back up.

Right there.

So you missed that slide when you were talking about the third part, the prophetic part.

Right.

And that's what we're talking about.

The things that are are going to involve all three of those, and the prophetic part that we talked about before, and that's something that has to kind of got into my mind quite a bit, is to try and understand that part of it.

And the whole book of Revelation is prophecy, but a lot of times we forget that chapters two and three, we tend to take the prophetic part out of it.

Where Jesus said that we talked about last before in 1910, it says Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

And you know, what you talked about, illumination is such a big deal.

The scripture never changes.

But as time goes on, God illuminates us to understand these things.

Why I think that we have people in here that are so interested in what's going on, because God has given us illumination that we're getting close to his time at hand.

And we need to be studying and understanding to be prepared and be telling others, hey, he's coming.

Because the scripture says that there's so many people said, Ah, y'all been talking about that forever.

Forget about it.

He's not coming.

No, he's coming, and God's giving us this word so that we.

Can understand that he is coming and we need to be prepared.

And he's showing us where we are in this time frame of history that we're right here on this part that's coming to the climax.

Yeah.

Coming to a news at 11, coming to theater near you.

You hear what she said too here.

Teacher talk.

I was explaining to her, I feel like recently the Lord has showed me that this heat that we're suffering right now is like from the fourth book of Jonah.

And Jonah was mad because the vine burned up and he lost his shade rather than being concerned about the Ninevehes who were just about to be destroyed.

I kept I with all this heat, I kept thinking about the heat.

I don't know when we get into Revelation.

It talks about the scorching, the burning and the scorching.

And uh the you know, I'm going, man, when's the rain gonna come?

And I'm it's freaking, you know, I don't like it.

They want to die.

It's so bad.

They want they want to die.

They can't take it anymore.

They want to die, and they can't.

God won't let them because he's still trying to reach them.

I heard you die that as many people have died from the heat as from the hurricanes.

This hurricane's Dr.

Bennett used to say it's looking gloriously dark.

Yeah, he had another one that said Gabriel's licking his lips.

That's one of my favorites.

Remember that?

Gabriel's licking his lips.

I think one of the things that I noticed um was the bit about the Nigel Lantons.

Yeah.

But this church, a good thing about this church was that they were, they were quick to call out and identify the false, and uh, I think about today, and do we even measure up to Smyrna in that respect?

Because we have all these false prophets right around um on our TV screen everywhere.

And um, so I'm thinking, well, we've got something we can learn from Sperma as far as their assets.

Yeah, they call out the false ones.

Yeah.

Back to what you said while a couple it's talking about losing your first love.

It's not it's more about motive than it is acting.

That's right.

Your actions.

Yep, keep on going.

Yeah, their their actions were good, because that was the commendation.

You persevered, you're toiling, you're you're teaching, you're they were doing the things, but why were they doing the things?

It's it's why were they doing what they were doing?

And after a while it was just becoming routine.

And he doesn't want that.

He he doesn't if you're not enthusiastic about Christianity.

If you're not enthusiastic, if you're not excited, if you're not enthusiastic, there's something wrong.

There's there's something amiss somewhere, you know.

Why did we sit here and become the church then, you know?

Yeah.

What are we doing?

It's gotta go well.

Yeah, that's right.

Yep.

And I'm at Walmart.

That's right.

And I get upset.

What am I gonna do?

Yeah, what are you gonna do?

You didn't drive through damn near Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

And for me, it's it's every day.

Yeah.

And you know what's I'm glad you brought that up.

God will put you, He will place you in a test to see where you're at.

The problem is we think church is inside these walls, but it's not.

Church is to learn so we can go outside and do what the church is supposed to do.

Be careful what you pray for.

Pray.

Yeah, yeah.

Give me a chance.

Yeah.

My son is uh dying of terminal cancer, and so every week we're at the hospital two or three days a week, and we're sitting there with all those sick people, and I can't help but think, do they know Jesus?

How do you reach so many suffering sick people when the hope is not there for them?

And I don't know, I just feel kind of overwhelmed, like, but Jesus is the hope.

Yeah, you just don't know, my heart's broken for everybody.

Just just remember that verse I told you.

You're an aroma from death to death, or life to life.

Well, you know, people just know what I'm thinking.

I used to I used to walk through my life and worry about the first five seconds when somebody would meet me.

Right.

You know, your opinions formed in five seconds.

And now I wor I I think about, I hope when when I leave that I leave a better taste in their mouth of Jesus, you know, and they can they can they see him in me and me and me.

Right.

Yeah, that's great.

You're building relationships.

Yeah, all those people you run across and you rub shoulders with you building.

You're building and building, but you're building and building so that there's gotta come a time when you actually step over and talk and say something.

Yeah.

You know?

I mean it's kind of like feeding somebody.

You can feed them and feed them and feed them and clothe them and clothe them and clothe them, but if you never ever say, look, you know, I know I can keep you alive by feeding you, but one day you're gonna die.

Where are you gonna go?

Evangelism is not hard.

You don't have to take a course.

You just just talk to people.

Where are you at?

Where you saw?

You what do you believe?

You know what?

Now you're opening yourself up for the Holy Spirit to work.

Because I remember going through the Romans roads like, hey, wait, wait, wait, don't ask me questions.

I gotta get to this one.

You know, you're not supposed to interrupt, you know.

I gotta get through this first.

You know what it is?

I mean I'm probably gonna have a wrong comment about the Holy Spirit.

Just one example.

I don't know your name.

There was the lady next to my mother streaming bloody murder.

And I was like, what can I do?

How can you do it?

I had no idea because nobody was telling me.

No one was telling me.

And he gave me a word, and and it wasn't me choosing, I wouldn't have chosen.

But he gave me a word and I took it to her, and I talked to her very calmly and asked her if I could pray for her and could I read that I felt the Lord wanted me to read to her.

And it talked about David being formed in his mother's womb.

Now, does that sound strange?

But let me tell you, after I read that to her and I prayed for her, I never heard her scream again.

That's great.

Yeah, you know, uh, I'm the kind of person who a situation arises and I don't know what to do.

I'm not sure what to do.

And so because I don't know what to do, I don't do anything.

But I've learned that you step into it.

You have to you I know you don't know what to do, but step into it and see what happens.

And yeah, it's you you step into it, hey.

Guess who's there?

The Lord's there and he'll he'll take care of it.

You gotta you gotta call one of the block.

Yeah.

Okay, uh anything else.

So we we're gonna today was a little bit longer because we had to establish the order of how we go through those churches, but but next week we cover three churches, and then the week after that another three.

Um so it moves around, but you know the pattern now.

You know you know the pattern.

David, do you want to pray?

Sure, I'll pray for.

God, thank you for today.

We thank you that your word is perfect.

It's uh it speaks to us on a not only a daily basis, but on a moment-by-moment basis.

We know that it's true revelation, and we know that you do illuminate us to understand it, and we ask you to give us understanding as we go through this so that we may have more of a mindset, knowing that you are coming quickly, and that we should be sharing you with others, talking about you, for the time is short, as your word says.

And I don't I don't think that we're just in here be for some happenstances that you've given us this study so that we can better understand the times and better better understand what you have, and this study should give us uh confidence.

It's it should really comfort us and not draw us for anything to be scared of or have anxiety about.

It just gives me so much confidence that you're in control of everything, and that you're on plan A and you're going to see this all to fulfillment, and the wonderful thing is we're going to be with you.

So I ask you to go with each one of these tonight, that you would walk with them, keep them close to you, help them to know more about you and to make you known to others.

So we leave this and go in the precious name of our Lord, Savior, Creator, Champion, conquer Jesus Christ.

Amen.