REVELATION SERIES - Week 5 - September 16, 2026

Everybody ready to go?

Hey, just just for a for a for a little extra.

Look at that.

I showed him that picture.

You know what that picture is of?

Well, what in Turkey?

Huh?

Smyrna.

It's Ishmer, which is was the first church we're going to talk about tonight, Smyrna.

Three million people live there now.

So I just thought that was interesting.

That's just a little bonus.

That's the modern day Smyrna, Ishmer, third biggest city in Turkey.

Interesting.

Hey, uh coach, won't you open us up in prayer and then we'll get going?

Thank you, Lord, for this day that you give us, and thank you, Lord, for the opportunity we have to come here tonight and and uh Lord and study your word, and we just thank you for it.

And thank you for our church and all our staff.

And Lord, thank you for uh our class here and each individual that's here, Lord, just pray that you bless us.

And in your name we pray.

Amen.

All right, who's all watching the videos?

Good, we got a good group.

So I just just to kind of kind of go back a little bit.

You know, when we when Ian I was talking about teaching the class, my original idea was to show the videos and then have some discussion afterward.

But the thought process was there just wouldn't be enough time for questions and things like that.

And I I really like this format what we're doing because it gives you guys time to go through them over and over.

Because I've watched these videos eight, ten, twelve times, and I still get plenty out of it.

But if you know, if you really you want to get the best out of the study, you gotta you gotta look at the videos.

So I'm glad you guys are doing that, and that helps us so much and it gives you a lot of understanding.

Let me ask you a question.

Uh when you think about a mystery, what is a mystery?

Something you yeah, you're a puzzle, something you can't figure out.

But in the scriptures, what is a mystery?

Huh?

In the Bible, when it talks about a mystery, what is a mystery?

Well, let's go even farther.

God's purpose is will.

Well, typically when we're talking about mystery in the Bible, it's something that wasn't seen, that's seen now.

Right?

Divinely, divinely truth that wasn't once known, that is known.

You know, like we're teaching Ephesians in in our uh Sunday Bible uh study, and it talks about the church.

Church wasn't known, it was a mystery.

Now it's known.

And if you are studying about these churches, you're understanding that God is showing us a mystery.

I hope you're seeing that.

Are you guys grasping that?

That God is showing us, look, here we are in the 21st century, and God is showing us a mystery of things that would not have been known a couple hundred years ago.

So we're seeing some great truths, and I hope you guys are grasping that.

And even as I've studied uh Revelation before, I'm seeing that there's so much that I'm understanding that I didn't understand.

And I think that as we get closer to the time of the end, that's just natural.

God wants to show his children what he's gonna do.

And I think that's that's what we're seeing.

So, how many of you had never heard this heard this teaching about the prophetic part of the church before?

Everybody in here for the most part has?

No.

Well, it's new to a lot of people, but it's but it's it's it's it's something, as I said, Dr.

Bennett taught and is of other teachers, but there's most teachers don't teach this part of it, and it's a very important part of what we're studying.

And so we studied Ephesus last week, and what was anybody want to tell us something about what they remember or came to their mind big about Ephesus?

Okay, and and what we call that church in time frame, in our time frame as we're looking at this clock we've been looking at.

The apostolic church.

Or is uh I guess we didn't I had a handout I had put together and I guess they didn't get it up here about seven themes of Revelation, and I'll get that to you.

I made a I made a uh oh it's on the back?

Okay.

So you can see some of those churches have a different name.

That's and that was typically uh more what Dr.

Bennett used when he did it, you know.

He just called it the Loveless Church, but we call it, I like it really better.

It was a loveless church, but I like it as the apostolic church.

So um just kind of walking back on what's going to be important, you know, a big thing that Ian talked about last week is as we read through these churches, one thing that really homes in on me as I'm thinking about those things is each one of those has a description of Jesus that correlates to that church, which I think is very interesting.

And that's real important to note as we look through this.

So when you're looking back through your notes and you're thinking forward, look back to Revelation 1, which we get the best description of Jesus in the Bible, along with Daniel 7.

And so those uh characteristics of Jesus are real important to know because you're gonna see those, how they work with these churches that we're gonna be looking at.

So we're gonna be looking at, we said we're looking at this through three different lenses.

The first one is that these were literal churches, these seven churches were in Asia Minor, Turkey, and not only were they literal churches, and they were specific to that area, historical churches.

You know, out of those seven churches, four of those churches still have modern-day cities that are inside of them.

Two of them are pretty much wiped out, Laodicea, in in Ephesus, and then one of them is just a small village.

But these are places, and I don't know, I want to go really bad to uh a historical tour of these cities, which you know that they have these now, where you can go and and and visit every one of these churches where they were at.

So these are real places, and they were spoken to literally by John.

And and as you look through and you're reading these, you notice, I don't know how you guys think about this, but as I'm looking through this and reading this, I start thinking, what churches do I know today that correlate to those?

Have you kind of thought about that?

And you can kind of see through time frame how there's churches today that will match up timeless.

So, you know, again, the another thing that Ian talked about last week that's real important is to understand is Jesus walking amongst these lampstands, holding these churches in his hand, he still has a hold of the church today, a hundred percent.

And so these truths are timeless.

And I think one thing that helps me too, you know, if you read just read through Revelation and you don't look at this, it almost seems like Revelation 2 and 3 doesn't fit, the book.

But when you look at it through this lens, you understand how well it fits and how important it is to what's going on.

And then the other one is the prophetic, which we're we're gonna we're gonna spend some more time.

So we call this the time that we're in.

We're actually in two time frames in history.

We're in the we're in the church age, age of grace, but we're also in the time of the Gentiles, and that's important to note as we start getting into this part where we start getting into the Old Testament, how it ties together.

So, so um, and this is, I think this is so interesting because I'd never seen this in my study before how these churches go around in a clock dial.

But they, doesn't that, isn't that it's just uncanny?

When I say uncanny, I don't mean that to be like it's a something that just pops up.

I mean, Jesus is in, you know, when you look at this, you understand that Jesus is 100% in charge of everything.

And he's so precise.

So we're looking at a clock, and when I think about that clock, I think about that we're not looking at time going forward.

We're looking at time from the we're looking back, right?

And we're looking at how this all ends.

You know, we're look we're look really, you know, we're kind of at we're kind of in an hourglass, you know, when the sand's going down.

That's kind of where we're at.

This sand's going down, and time's gonna be no more.

And we're seeing how God is working through history, and he's making a climax out of all this.

So, so this is quite interesting, and we're gonna be looking at three churches tonight.

Now, you see, we were at Ephesus last year, last week.

Could have almost felt like last year.

Those are the three we're gonna be looking at tonight.

And so, and we looked at this age in time, and last week we looked at Ephesus, and what we said was that's the apostolic age.

And it ended when the time of the apostles was over with.

And we know that when pretty much when John died, that age was over with.

The foundation of the church was built, and that sets us up for this next time frame that we're gonna get into.

Now you're gonna see that these time frames don't necessarily run exactly in the same amount of time frame in history.

Some of them will go through a long period of time, some of them shorter.

But so we are gonna start tonight and we're gonna look at Revelation, our first church, Revelation 2, 8 through 11, where we're looking at Smyrna.

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna, right, the first and the last, who was dead and who has come to life, says this.

I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich.

And the blasphemy, the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested and you will have tribulation for ten days.

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

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

He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.

All right.

Any thoughts?

Anybody want to give us some thoughts to start off with before we get into this?

Well, Christ in the first verse, first this first verse says he is the first and the last.

The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Now, that's pretty important for us to know when you're looking at that, because he has the keys to everything.

And so, who was dead and who has come to life says this.

Would that be important for you to know if you were going to have some belief in something?

What's the difference between what he's saying and what anybody else has ever said?

He's the only one who has died and came back to life.

Not in any other religion, not in anything as everybody has ever done that.

Now, look, why that's so important for this testimony right here, because of what's going to happen to this church.

You know, we have a hope because of what Christ has done, and we know that we have a future because of what he's done.

So he says, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich.

So when Christ calls Himself the first and the last again, in this I also bring to my mindset, he knows everything.

He says, I know.

I know what you're going through.

And he talks about in this verse 9, he says, Look, you're commended in your tribulation and poverty.

And one of the things to understand why they were in such poverty, if you look at the at those times in the in the Roman Empire, they had so many what we call trade guilds.

And if you weren't a part of that trade guild, you couldn't get a job, pretty much.

And part of that being a part of that trade guild is you had to follow what their practices were.

And the problem was is they had some terrible practices, and the church would have had to compromise to be a part of this.

And what he says is, yet I call you truly rich.

You know, the Bible talks about what's rich than what man calls what's rich.

And you know, I just remember in Africa when we were teaching these young people, and they were all thinking about we're from America, we're rich.

And I got to talking to them about how so many people that are so tied up with their wealth they can't even get a good night's rest.

And all the things they had to deal with.

And I was trying to explain to them, and you know, I finally could see their light start coming on.

I was saying, you guys are rich.

You don't realize that.

You have peace with man, peace with God, and you put your head down and you get a good night's rest.

I said, most there's a lot of people in America, they don't get that.

But the difference the rich is, look, they knew what their hope was, they knew what they were looking for.

And he's saying, he's saying that you're truly rich.

And he said, one of the, and these are the condemnations.

Now, there's only two churches in these seven that did not have a condemnation.

One of them was Smyrna, and we're going to see one's Philadelphia.

So neither one of these churches, and you know, if you got the back of that handout, one of the things I put in there, and if just to tell you, you know, again, I could never get away from Dr.

Bennett, is that those every one of those seven themes of Revelation start with a C.

And so that was a Dr.

Bennett thing.

He always tried to get you to rememorize things.

Tom, you remember all these, every all the sermons all started with different letters, right?

And so C's.

But the I put the C is checkup of the churches the way I put it.

Jesus is doing an audit of these churches.

He's doing an audit.

And he's telling them, look, in this audit that he gives them, he has no condemnation for this church at all.

He says you're truly rich.

And you opposed by a synagogue of Satan, and he says that's in Jews in name only.

Now we know in Galatians, Paul said, Hey, is there anything being preached besides Jesus?

Anything added to it?

Man?

It's condemned.

And that's what he's saying here.

These Jews were trying to add, you know, in some of the churches, the Jews was fine with them coming in, but they always wanted to add something to it.

Jesus plus.

And he was saying, look, you are following my theology.

You understand what truth is, and you are not following the synagogue of Satan.

And he said, Jews in name only.

So we know, look, what's a true Jew today?

True Jew is one who knows Jesus Christ.

That's a true Jew.

We're grafted in.

But God's still got a great work to do with Israel, and we're going to see that when we get into this lesson.

And you're going to get that.

So in some of these verses on here, if you guys take this back and look at them, you know, Romans 2, 28 and 29 will tell you again what a true Jew is in 1 John 2, 22 and 23.

And I like what Ian put on here.

Anyone that denies the Son makes one an antichrist or against Christ.

You know, it's funny.

You can talk about God all day long, but when you start naming the name of Jesus, things change, don't they?

And I'm and I mean these people, they understood who Jesus was.

He said, do not fear.

Ten days of testing, imprisonment.

And and one of the things, if you as you listen to those videos, you understood that in, you know, they're a little bit different in in uh Rome and in the Roman Empire than they were in the U.S.

When they say a swift trial, they meant it.

It wasn't like America.

A swift trial here might be a year, two years, five years.

Their trials were fast, and they didn't believe in keeping people in jail because it took took money.

They believe in making things happen.

And typically, what would happen is you either in the in the in the Roman society, if you just had a small crime, they might they might flog you or they might charge you some money, but if it was serious and they were going to put you to death, typically that was a 10-day time frame.

That was it.

So it's interesting that Paul names this here and says he's going to test you for 10 days.

That goes right along with uh the the uh Roman law at that time.

Does anybody remember what he said about the number 10?

Testimony.

Just like we talked about the number seven, the number ten symbolizes something.

Anybody remember what it was?

Testimony.

Testimony.

You remember Moses?

How many how many things were there?

Ten.

You know, it's ten.

Ten is testimony, and so this is a testimony.

This is a testimony when they when they come and get you and kill you for Christ, that's your that's your opportunity for a testimony.

And that's what this church means.

Smyrna comes from myrrh, which means death.

You know, like frankincense and myrrh.

That's what they used on embalming people.

So that that's what this whole thing is about.

So interesting.

So they're gonna go through death, and that's what the name of this church is.

It's interesting how that all goes right together with what we're talking about.

You know, when I was thinking about ten in the testimony, I was thinking about Abraham uh talking to uh to Jesus, and he was talking about, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah.

How many people, he said, how many people would there have to be there, you know, before you would create judgment?

Started with 50, what'd he get down to?

10.

That's what resonated with me when I was thinking about that ten.

So anyway, uh, yeah, so that is real important what Ian just said, that I just kind of went over that.

Smyrna.

And when this name here, Smyrna, myrrh.

Myrrh's a spice, and it's basically a spice out of gum tree, and it had a nice smell, and uh, but in Jesus' time it was mainly used for embalming.

So it goes right along with with this church right here being named Smyrna, and what this church is gonna go through is trials.

So he's telling them, you know, and I think one of the things too that's interesting when John says this, he's trying to give them some comfort that this trial is not gonna go on but so long.

You know, if if this trial would go on for months, man, I don't know how any of them could stand, but he's saying, look, this is gonna go on for ten days.

And he says, Don't fear, be faithful unto death for the crown of life, a reward for endurance, not a cinnamon for salvation.

Do any of you guys struggle when he said, hey, if you if you go through this trial and make it, you get the crown of life?

You struggle with that?

Huh?

Sure.

I mean, I I used to I used to struggle with that.

I mean, but we need to understand what he's saying.

He's not saying anything about salvation.

Now, when we put life in there, a lot of times it gets us to be thinking, okay, you know, these people, if they don't, if, if, if they renounce, are they gonna are they gonna die?

I mean, are they not gonna go to heaven?

That's not what this is saying at all.

One of the things we got to we have to understand is is what he's talking about this, the crown of life is a reward for endurance, not a synonym for salvation.

That's real important because what are we saved?

How do we get saved?

By faith.

Alright, and what does Jesus say?

He says, look, even if you're unfaithful, I am faithful.

And that's very important to understand, is look, if you're not careful, you get into works real quick in any of this.

So if you if you start trying to trying to get this in your mind, your theology gets all out of whack.

And the thing is, if we really, if we listen to Scripture, it tells us, specifically, in Romans 8, 38, 39, what's it say?

Talks about that we're more than conquerors.

What can what can what can keep us from the love of God?

Nothing.

And nothing means nothing.

And that's all that nothing means.

Nothing.

So what he's telling these people is look, I want to give you encouragement to stand up in the face of trials.

Because what's going to happen?

You're going to get the crown of life.

And what is the crown of life?

Hey, somebody, while you while I'm doing this, why don't you look this up for me?

James 1 12, if you would.

Somebody there's got a Bible in front of them.

The crown of life, righteousness for perseverance.

And what is this what is this crown of life?

And we say these crowns are Stefanos.

I'll tell you another story in a minute after this is kind of interesting.

But this is a crown that's given for endurance of persecution.

That's what it's for.

And so he's trying to encourage them to stay the test.

And, you know, you think about it.

One time in Sunday school, I got a rope, and it went all the way from down this hallway to down this hallway down here.

And I put a little piece of white tape on it.

And I said, What's that white piece of white tape represent?

And they was looking at me like, I don't know.

I said, That's your life on this earth.

That rope goes all the way down, that's eternity.

He's saying, Look, just test this ten days.

It's a small amount.

What's laid up for you is incredible.

And so, who's got that verse?

Read that.

I've got it.

All right.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to him that love him.

That's the crown of life.

It is a reward.

One of the things that I've been learning as I've been studying for the last few years is, and I had this thing that came to me about my brother, because I'd just seen what he'd been doing on this earth, and I was just thinking about all the rewards he's getting.

But you know, the rewards that you're going to get in heaven, you know you're not going to get them until you're raised, you're bodily raised.

You're up there enjoying heaven, righteousness, but you're not going to get those rewards until the beam of seat judgment.

And that's going to be interesting when we get to chapter 4 when we see these crowns on these guys' heads.

But so he's saying these rewards are going to be laid up for you, a crown of righteousness.

So stand the test, and he's trying to encourage them to stay with it.

The other thing that Ian said earlier, these ten, which is interesting, when we look at this time frame of the church, ten, there were ten different kings during this time frame, or emperors, which I think is interesting as well.

So again, uh we get a little bit more insight.

So what he's saying is, look, you are overcomers, and an overcomer is a believer.

Doesn't mean that we did everything right, it means that we have faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation.

That's an overcomer.

And so he's telling them to be encouraged.

They're rich.

And so this church is, we're going to look at this and we'll come back up to this.

Smyrna.

And why we call this, this is the persecuted church.

Because what happened is for the first hundred years, from from near the end of the century, most of the persecution actually came from the from the Jews.

But what happened is as they turned over after that first century, and the apostolic church was gone, and the church became mainly Gentiles.

Then Romans took over and started persecuting and killing a lot of them.

Now, if you understand, you remember the first week that I talked to you guys about Ianaus, I said he was one of the men who gave testimony that this book was written in 95, correct?

You remember that?

Now his father, his spiritual father, was Polycarp.

And Polycarp was a part of this group.

Polycarp was a bishop or a pastor of the Church of Smyrna.

And one of the things about this church was as they were to give their reference and their allegiance to the emperor.

They were to treat him as God, and that's what got Polycarp.

He said, Look, no, I'm not bound down to the Emperor.

He said, God's been good with me for 86 years, and I think I'll just go ahead and go on right now.

And they burned him at the stake.

So that's what happened to Polycarp.

So he was one of the martyrs of this persecuted church that we read about.

So that is the church of Smyrna.

And we say the time frame from 100 to 313, and we're going to see an event that happens in 313 that we know how this ends.

Now, I hope that you see, as you guys are going through your videos and you're seeing this, is just how incredible that these church matches up with history.

And that's that's it's real important.

So now we're gonna look at the next church, which is the church of uh Pergamum.

And uh Pergamum has two different meanings.

Pergus, which is a fortress.

Yeah, Pergam means uh it just means married to a mighty governing authority.

The two words together means a mighty fortress, married to.

We're gonna see how that all goes together here in just a minute.

So, so um what happens?

Well, we're gonna see that in just a minute, but here again, at the beginning of this, let's look at this.

And to the angel of the church in Pergamon, right, the one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast to my name, and do not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

But I have a few things against you, because you have, there are some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality.

So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitians.

Therefore repent, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth.

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

To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden man, and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.

Let me back up for just a second what I had a thought a while ago.

I was going to tell you about the Church of Smyrna.

I don't know whether you ever anybody ever in here thought that you might be killed for your faith.

Have you ever had that thought in your life?

I'd never had that thought in my life at all until I went to Africa.

And and I it's just not something that you you think about dying for your faith, right?

In America especially.

But I was in, I was, I was, I was in uh Mombasa, and I don't know if you know the history real quick, but Mombasa, a town on the coast, is heavily Muslim.

And then they say back when the colonial time went and and Britain was coming over that uh the Queen had to deal with the Muslims, and they said, You can have all the Kenya you want, you just can't have Mombasa.

They said they had a handshake deal.

So Mombasa was heavily Muslim.

And we were in a church in Mombasa, and we just happened to be going through the marketplace, and we were seeing this Muslim store over here, and we got kind of skittish about going in.

And the Muslim guy says, Come on in, man, don't worry about it.

He said, I see all your guards all around you, you have nothing to worry about.

We didn't even know that there was people watching us to go in.

And that was the first time I thought, you could actually die for your faith.

And for a minute, I could tell you, I thought, man, that'd be cool.

But because I just never thought about it.

I said, that would be absolutely cool, wouldn't it?

Man, you got some more crap.

But I just never had that thought before.

But that was interesting just to go backwards.

But anyway, to the angel of the church and Pergamon, right, the one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this.

And we said that this meaning, a pergaman, means a strong tower that's married to this strong tower.

We'll look at that.

So Christ says he has this two-edged sword, which is very important because that is the symbol of governing, especially in Rome.

That two-edged sword, when they had that, they knew that that's what you govern with, and that's what they used to cut guys' heads off.

Let me let me mention one thing before we go on.

Who was it that ended the persecution?

Constantinople.

And what did he do?

Legalized Christianity.

He legalized Christianity.

Now, how do you how does that work?

How do you legalize Christianity?

Well, we do we're gonna see what all he does.

Do you see where we get the where the marriage is coming here?

The government or the Rome is marrying the church.

They're coming together.

Just by just by declaration.

And so now you that's what can't Constantinople.

What what quit then?

All the persecution quit.

Overnight.

Is that not so that's a historical mocker, and that's important to know that that's what Constantinople did.

And we're gonna see.

Constantine.

Constantine.

Yeah.

So Constantine had this vision or dream.

He was getting ready to go into battle against a huge army, and he had this vision that he was gonna win, and he was seeing these crosses.

Now think about it when you're setting this up.

From 100 to 300, what you have is a persecuted church.

So what happens when you get a persecuted church?

It flourishes, doesn't it?

It has a lot of strength.

And what Constantine was seeing was this church is getting strong.

And then he had this vision that said, Hey, man, hey, if I win this tomorrow, it's God's deal.

I'm gonna set him up as the as the emperor, more or less.

And we see how everything changes.

So what happens when we when we get to when the church marries the government, we get all kinds of problems, right?

And that's what I call it's a compromising church.

And we're gonna that's what we're talking about, a church that compromises.

So another thing I thought about is how quickly, instead of doing a water baptism, in order for them to do it fast and everybody became a Christian, they sprinkled them rope, and they just walked across or on the horses and sprinkled them.

Well, think about this.

If you marry the church with the government, what happens?

Everybody's a Christian.

And that was part of the thinking.

And we see this how this works on what happens through history of what happens when the church marries the government.

And so he condemns them.

Let me back up.

He says, I want you to hold fast where Satan's throne is.

Now, this was a this was a seat, uh, a governing seat out of the Roman Empire.

And so this is where the throne of Tiberius was, and this is where they were supposed to worship him as God and hold him up as the deity.

And he's saying that you're holding fast where Satan's throne is.

So he's saying you're right in the middle of Satan's throne room and you're standing up, and I want to applaud you for that.

And also Antipos was also another one of our church fathers that was also martyred during this same time.

So he says, and then he could, you know, one thing is we when we talked about where we have these this checkup here, you typically have where Jesus is going to give them an attaboy, then he's gonna come back and say, hang on now, I got this against you.

So he wants to tell them right where they're at, and he wants them to get right.

So he says, I got these few things against you, because you have, there's some holds the teaching of Balaam, who keeps teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of morality.

So what happened in these trade guilds?

They would they would sacrifice meat to idols, which was one thing that God said, don't be doing that.

And what did they do when they had these they had these uh uh not only did they sacrifice meat to idols, but they also would get into wild orgies at the same time.

Things that just God told the church, it's not what I want you to be doing.

And so uh when he says that uh I want you you but I have these things against you, these teachings of Balaam, who keep teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality.

That's what this is about.

But who under who remembers from your history what's the teaching of Balaam?

What is that?

False God, false.

Well, more more than that.

He got into bed with it.

Well, the teaching of Balaam, if you remember, Balaam was a prophet, but what he wanted to do was compromise his faith and his understanding of God's laws, and he wanted to profit off of it.

He wanted to bring a prophet into not only him but to the church.

And that's that's when we compromise our faith.

And so one of the things you're gonna see interesting here is we see that actually Balaam was a believer.

And a lot of people would say he wasn't, but it says he was a believer.

So you're gonna see the progression going downhill from these churches, how they progress downward.

Here we have now false teaching that comes into the church.

What happens first?

You have a true church, and then the next thing that happens is you have false teachers that are believers that come into the church, and then we're gonna see how it progresses on from there.

But Balaam was a guy who just uh he uh wanted to profit off of his faith.

Simple as that.

Does anybody remember what Stephen said about tickling ears?

Because that's why I put it on there.

Remember what he said?

What what you know that's the warning that we gather teachers that will tickle our ears.

What what what was what did he say about that?

Do you remember?

Voluntarily.

Is there some public believe he was just a sorcerer?

I know he wasn't Jews.

Some people believe that, but I mean is that unfounded?

No, I would say, I would say yes.

I mean, really, I think what what Ian put here, look, Balaam is just a greed-driven false teacher.

Right.

He's a false teacher.

He's one of, but so not necessarily a sorcerer, but he was never increasingly.

Well, what yeah, but if you if we read that, if we we reading that that text of where we are, okay, we really, if you'll we really dive into it, you'll see that he was a believer.

Okay.

He was part of the church.

He said that he says he's part of the church.

So um well, here but here's here's why I would tell you, just look what it says next to him.

Repent.

He's telling him to repent.

He's not telling to get saved.

I want you to repent.

Or I will make war with a sword of my mouth.

So he's talking about, look, I want you to repent, or I'm gonna take care of this double-edged sword, and I'm gonna take care of the church here.

I'm gonna cut it off.

Yep, same thing.

They they kind of held out some of their profit, didn't they?

So so I think when we look at that, and you'll see that when we get to the next one, that uh the next one we get to that we have an unbeliever.

So um overcomers receive hidden manna and a white stone with a new name.

And so you see this in this next verse right here, where he talks about that that he's gonna give them the hidden manna.

Now, if we study this church, you guys, if you've seen it, if you if you went into a doctor's office and you see this serpent with the huh?

It's a god of medicine.

It's actually a god from Greek.

That's where this all comes down the pipe all the way down from here.

So this this center was a was a center of medicine, a center of healing.

And people would go into this center of medicine, and part of their belief had to be with their gods.

They believe that their gods is what did the healing and they had the snake.

It's interesting, it's a snake, isn't it?

That tell you something that something's a little bit off here to start off with.

So uh David on the Nicolagens, uh-huh, is that kind of where maybe like a bishop rule or pastor rule started somewhat?

Yes.

Hierarchy.

Okay.

So and it wouldn't necessarily be that, but it probably that's a part of it.

Okay.

Because we're seeing again that we're seeing the government, Mary the Church.

Now the government wants to put people in layers of office.

So you could say it's office, but we see that this is what rises to bishops, cardinals, all the stuff that goes on, and that we have to go through someone else to take care to get to Jesus.

So the priesthood of the believer, what we call it.

So um Yeah, notice he said that the he's gonna come with the sword of his mouth, and he's gonna issue judgment.

And it and and I don't know, do you remember what Stephen said?

Who that who's that judgment kind of directed at?

Who you know, when you talk about Nicolatians, you talk about Balaam, who who were those guys?

They were the leaders.

So it's the leadership of the church.

It's the leadership that he's coming to take care of because they're the ones messing it all up, you know?

And and he'll take care of it.

And he did take care of it.

Because we know what happens is, how did this how did this time of the church finish?

What happened?

Huh?

No, you get to the next church.

You got ahead of us.

You got ahead of us.

What ended this church?

Fall of Rome around 600, and it and it broke up.

One side Constantinople, the other side Rome.

And you got a little, you're like a guy in my class that we talk about all the time.

You're just a little ahead of us right now.

That's okay.

We'll get there, we're gonna get there.

You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Paul?

Urgen.

It stays ahead of us, that's okay.

So, yeah, we're gonna see that next.

So, what happens at this time frame?

The church is cut off, the head, what we just talked about.

The leadership is cut off.

Rome gets disintegrated into many parts.

And so the leadership of the of the church, for the most part, is gone.

And now that brings rise to the next one.

So we're gonna look at that, we're gonna look at that next.

And that is the church of Thyrotira.

All right, so and to the angel of Thyrotiraite, the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like burnished bronze, says this I know your deeds and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first.

But I have this against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bondservants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

I gave her time to repent, and she did not want to repent of her immorality.

Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds, and I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyrah, wide who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan as they call them, I place no other burden on you.

Nevertheless, what you have hold fast until I come.

He who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end to him I will give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter and broken to pieces, and I also have received authority from my Father, and I will give him the morning star.

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

Now this church rises.

This is the Roman Catholic Church that we all know about.

That's what this gives rise to.

Because what happens is the leadership fell and it splintered into all these different areas instead.

And we see this rise.

So look, Christ says, I am the uh, I mean, I'm sorry, he says he has.

Eyes like flames of fire and feet like burnished bronze.

What does that tell us?

Well, the bronze is judgment.

Bronze is judgment.

Judgment through fire, that's what purifies things.

But it also says he has eyes like burning fire.

What does that tell us?

He knows everything.

He sees the heart.

And what he's saying is, I see what you're doing.

I see your deeds.

Now, one of the things that he talks about then, he said, he said, I know your deeds and your love and faith and service and perseverance that the deeds are greater than at first.

So this church is actually growing in deeds.

They're doing a lot better job of feeding the poor, of taking care of people.

That's how the church, when it started, said, You got plenty of deeds, but you don't have any creeds.

And we're going to see the next church coming in, we're coming in after this.

We're going to see a church that has lots of creeds.

Everybody remember why those deeds increased?

Why?

Why did all those deeds and all those good things they do increase?

Well, isn't it the Roman Empire when it fell?

Yeah.

That's right.

But again, what was what did the teaching teaching change from?

Changed from faith to works.

To works.

Yeah.

You get that?

And we see what happens.

Again, when you when the church gets compromised like it did, you go from just false teaching to now just total corruption.

And the church corrupted from within.

And so that's what happens.

But this church has a lot of deeds.

And so you can see how they would get.

And what happened during this time frame that we're looking at?

All kinds of things that that Islam and all kinds of other religions will tell you, man, the Christians were terrible.

Crusades.

All this stuff that happened.

So he condemns them for tolerating the teaching of Balaam.

I'm sorry, I got I went back up.

So they're commended for love, faith, service, perseverance, with deeds increasing over time.

But he says, I'm condemning you for tolerating Jezebel, the false prophetess.

And here's the difference.

We talked about Balaam was a believer.

Jezebel's an unbeliever.

It's an unbeliever.

And so total uh breakdown in the church is what's happened.

So he's basically saying that the this church is run and governed and ruled by unbelievers.

What do you expect?

The sexual immorality doesn't have to be physical here.

The church, the bride of Christ, is worshiping the idol.

So then you're committing sexual immorality.

Absolutely.

And the same thing is going on, these guilds that they had that you had to be a member of.

And again, if you wanted to, if you wanted to make a good living, you wanted to have the good things, you had to compromise.

You had to join these guilds.

And the the true church, the remnant, would not do this.

And he's saying, look, because as Ian said, now you have total unbelievers running the church, what is he saying?

The church is Jezebel.

The church is Jezebel.

That's what he's saying.

So it's not a person he's talking about.

He's talking about the whole system.

And he's saying, I've given you time to repent.

And if you don't, I'm getting ready to come take care of business.

And this is this really, when this comes to the end of this, it really comes to roost of how incredible detail this is on these churches.

But either true believers in the midst of that.

And he says there is.

Yes, there are.

He says there is.

And there always is.

All through these.

There's always a remnant.

God's always got a remnant.

So we see that this is the Roman Catholic Church.

The church became the governing power of Europe, introducing works-based justification, idol, image worship, idol image worship, priestly celibacy, confession to priests, purgatory, marry worship, judgment fell as the black plague, and that's what happens to this.

If you look at history, this is so uncanny how this ends.

When Jesus says, I'm going to bring pestilence on you, what happens?

The black plague started in the 1300s and went for like 200 years.

Alright?

40% of the people in Constantinople died from the Black Plague.

This was brought on by rats, fleas off of rats.

And it's interesting that these two areas where the most people died was in Constantinople and Rome.

60% of the people died that lived in Rome.

40% that lived in Constantinople.

And by the time this ended, almost two-thirds of the people in Europe had died from this.

Quite interesting.

When Jesus says, Hey, I'm coming.

And how did he say he was going to do it?

How did he say he was going to judge this?

Pestilence.

And then what happened?

The black plague.

And when you look at this, and these are some of the things as you're looking through this history of the church and being able to look back, you start saying, My goodness.

And you know, one one of the things I want to tell you is, guys, look, as you're studying all this, it's only God that gives you understanding.

If you don't grasp this, God hasn't given it to you.

All I'm telling you is, look, as best that we can understand and as best that we know how, we're trying to teach truth according to what God says.

And it's up to the Holy Spirit to work through you to tell you if this is truth or not.

Now look, the more that I look at this, I'm saying, we're getting this mystery that God's bringing to light is incredible of what's going on.

And I can, to me, I see it as plain as the nose on my face.

But look, this is not what's being taught in most of the churches.

This is not what the belief.

And look, if you go back to the two main churches of the day, Antioch and Alexandria.

Antioch was a church that was more fundamental.

It believed in literal truth and literal teaching of the Bible.

You go to Alexandria, which brought on to all these things we're talking about, it was a teach that taught everything was allegory and symbols.

And that's where you start getting all this stuff going on.

And that's what you see come in the Catholic Church and even in some of the Reformed Church today, what's going on.

So uh And David, during this period of time, God still had his church teaching the truth all the way through.

As Ian said, there's always a remnant in the church.

Always.

And look, same thing for Israel.

We've got we've got we've got born-again Jews.

We've got God's true churches going forward, and we're gonna see how God's bringing that all together.

And the the reason for you to grasp all this right now, because we get as we get into this with Daniel, what's coming, you need to get this foundation of what's happening, because when we get into Daniel, you're gonna see how this really all starts coming together.

If you go, and you know, and I was studying again this morning Romans 9, 10 and 11, and you know, which is quite interesting to study as we go through what we're gonna see.

You know, this we get to 9 is talking about Israel's, you almost think they're out.

And in 10, you're saying, no, he's talking about the individuals here within that, but when you get to 11, you're going, huh?

They're all gonna be saved at the end.

It's just it's just quite interesting as we progress through that.

So I think what we, you know, again, the the main points being put down here at the bottom, the main points to carry forward, Smyrna, the persecuted church, with faithfulness under suffering, earns an eternal, not earthly reward.

Pergamum, the church state union, 313 to 600, official status brought, compromise, not purity.

And that's one thing you always got to remember.

When the government or any outside forces get into the church, it gets compromised.

And that's one of the things, I don't know if you guys realize that, but in China, there's probably more Christians in China than there are in the United States.

I don't know if you ever thought about it.

I mean, the underground church is flourishing and they are persecuted.

And they say one of the things they pray all the time is that America would come under persecution so you could see the true church.

That's what they're praying.

That's what they're praying.

And, you know, and one of the things when I was over in China, one of the things they want to prove that you're a Christian, they said, look, if they say they're saved, they said, All right, go out and and witness to we want to go, you see, you go out and witness to five people because it's not that's against Chinese law.

Can't do that.

But that's what they want to see.

So anyway, it's that was another sidebar.

Uh so Thyra, the Roman Catholic age, 600 to 1517, institution power and false teaching provoke Christ's discipline.

Yet the faithful remnant is never overburdened.

In every letter, Christ's self-description, this is important, fits the church's need, and every letter still ends with a secure promise to the overcomer.

You notice how he always ends those letters?

He who has an ear, let him hear.

And that's what he's speaking to us tonight.

Got an ear?

You need to hear what Christ is saying to his church.

And we have churches that fit right in with this today, and this church that we're looking at is, in my mind, is prophetic indeed.

So who's got you got anything, Ian, you want to add, or anybody got any questions they want to talk about?

Now, here's what's going to happen.

We've got one more week of these churches, and then we're going to take the 30th, and we're going to just have a kind of question and answer to review where we've been to get us set up for the next part.

Yeah, in fact, you know, I'll teach next week on the next three.

And and then I I won't send out a lesson for the one after that, but I will I I will send out something, and I want you to respond with questions or thoughts or something, and that will be our that will be our evening together.

On the 30th.

Answering those or talking about those or and we'll also summarize everything we've been because because after this church stuff, after after after chapter three, we're done with the churches and we're done with the church, and we're jumping into the future.

You know, and it's it's wild.

I mean, that's gonna be and you and we're gonna but we're gonna go back into Daniel, we're going to Daniel straight away.

In fact, lesson four A and four B are all in Daniel.

And so it's it's a good, it'll be a good time.

Remember what we said.

There's three parts to our outline: the things that were, chapter one, the things that are, chapter two and three, and the things after these things.

So right now we're still in the things that are.

You and I are in the things that are.

That's where we're at.

We're all in the things that are.

We got one more week.

We got one more week of these churches, then we're gonna have a review, and then you're gonna have to put your seatbelts on.

David, uh, if I remember correctly, with Thyra Tara, didn't God give them a thousand years to repent?

Isn't that what I read there?

Well, he did he did say that that that period of time is if you look on the 600 to 1517.

That's his date, and he says that, but I don't think that we have a biblical verse to tell us that it was a thousand years.

Oh, okay.

Well But I think what he said is he gave him a thousand years, but I don't think that he was saying biblically that there's anything that tells us a thousand years.

But what he does is I've given you time.

One of the things we see from this is just how long-suffering God is.

That's what I was thinking.

And I mean that's the point.

God is so long-suffering.

Yes, and so he gave this church a long, long period of time to repent, and they didn't.

They're a false church.

And we see how much of what's taught is overlapped in what's what's in our churches today.

And I could get real political right here, I gotta be careful when I start preaching.

But I'm just telling you guys this.

With what's in the Catholic Church right now, and what we could be happening politically, from a Catholic standpoint, in all millennialism, it could rise to what is coming, and that is for us to turn our back on Israel.

And so I don't want to get off on that, but that's going to be coming what we talk about.

But that is what has happened.

I'm on record, I'll let it go.

That's one of my gigantic concerns about advance.

Does anybody remember what Stephen said about how the thyre tire ended and started the next one?

Does everybody remember?

What was that in?

What starts the next what what age started what age starts the Reformation?

And and how did that come, you know, what did he say?

Yeah, those, you know, those guys, everybody's sick, the priesthood's all dying out.

Uh so everybody's gonna go home and remember COVID?

Remember what happened to COVID?

What did everybody do?

They were all at home, they're all we're zooming everywhere.

Everybody's you have to read your own Bible, you can't, it was not in groups.

Well, that's what what did we just see happen to Thyre Tyr?

Priesthood's gone, they weren't gathering, they weren't meeting.

So there's everybody sitting around reading their Bibles.

What happened was is all of these priest, monks were the ones taking care of the sick.

And they were all getting sick, and they started dying out, and people weren't coming to church.

So what happened?

The church went basically broke broke because there was no there nobody wanted to go to the church afraid they'd they'd die.

So, so that's kind of what happens, and that sets up the Reformation.

And so, of course, we know that technology and learning and printing presses and all those things helped all this, but we're gonna see how this rises when Ian back next week with these with these other three churches, and you're gonna see how this all works together and how God's working.

And I hope hope you're understanding more and more is that we're on this time clock that's going down.

We're running out of time.

And why God's given us this what I say, this understanding, divide understanding mystery that most people 100-150 years ago would not have seen at all.

I think God is showing us what's happening in the end times, giving us not revelation, but illumination.

It was always in there.

We want illumination, we want to be illuminated with the truth.

All right.

Anybody got anything else?

Do you see any correlation?

Do you do you think you see any correlation between the black leg and pelvis?

Sure.

Sure, I mean uh a lot.

I mean, and it's interesting, and you know, you see pastors that didn't want to follow what God said is to that kept us from the assembling of the church.

What did that cause?

We got we got how much is the church down now, Dave, overall in the country of the people that attend?

I mean, the the numbers are huge.

Never come back.

Same thing, black plaque didn't come back.

And so we're seeing all this come to roost, what's going on?

I think it's a close correlation.

But you see the pastors right now, and I'll just again give you another.

You see the pastors that follow what God told them to do.

And Jack Hibbs, I don't know if any of you guys follow him out in California, but Jack, he said he prayed about this and he said, I cannot shut this church down.

And California said, You're gonna shut down.

He said, I'm not going to shut down.

They fined him one million dollars, but he would not shut the church down.

You see what's going on now?

I think they had 2,000 professions of faith last year.

They're being blessed because of following God's word.

I think that's what we see, what's going on.

And that's what's gonna happen, and that's why we see today that we're in a layodice and time frame, but we still have Philadelphia churches.

And look, if you I just got a report today from Mentor Men for the Master, we have 40 nations right now that are discipling people.

We have 47,000 people being discipled right now in Africa in 40 countries, 10,000 people on a waiting list that just want to get material so they can get discipled.

God's working.

Don't ever forget that.

Don't we I mean, I hope, guys, that when you look at the big picture here, this should give us hope and confidence.

Not being scared or being afraid.

God's got this.

As we look through these churches, it should give you confidence that he's 100% got control of all of it.

And if he's got control of that, I've got confidence, he's gonna control of me.

So, you know, we ought to, this, this, if anything, this study, I hope, brings you uh peace.

Not not worrying about what's gonna happen, it should bring peace to you.

Man, I can't, may the king's coming, man.

The king's coming, he's gonna he's doing he's gonna do his thing.

Yeah.

600 600 is 1500 A.D.

was called the Dark Ages.

Yes, it was the Dark Ages, which is an interesting name.

All right, guys, we're we're at our time.

Anybody else got anything?

David, I did want to say thank you for saying that about his mercy.

Oh man.

His ways are so not old.

And I remember studying in the Old Testament Hebrew archaeology studying how that God, after 600 years, Canaanites were the most wicked people ever.

600 years before he annihilated all of them.

That's mercy.

Well, 600 years, none of us would put up with what they did.

I'm so thankful that we're not the judge of of each other, right?

Huh?

I'm thankful that God's the judge.

And he's so merciful.

I mean, hey, man, we we we we just don't we just don't spend time thanking him for the grace and mercy that he's given us.

What a great God he is.

All right, let's let's pray and be dismissed.

Yeah.

I just want to say if you could add a prayer.

Um, that little old lady that sits on the corner in front of Walgreens the other day.

Yeah.

Um, she was hit by a car this afternoon.

Oh my goodness.

She's got a broken leg.

I see that while we're sitting here in church.

But they said that she broke her leg.

She's in the hospital right now.

Sorry to hear that.

All right, let's pray and be dismissed.

God, thank you for this day that you've given us and this evening to talk about you and your word.

Uh man, just to sit and think about what you've done and how your grace and mercy just envelops us.

We're all just products of that, and we bless and honor you for it.

I want to lift up uh the lady here that was mentioned that you would be with her in the hospital, and God that you'd visit her, comfort her, strengthen her, giving her peace, give her healing.

We thank you for this time, and I believe that we are being blessed by studying your word, listening, reading.

And you said that's what you're gonna do, and I've I have just I've experienced it in my own life, and I pray that you would allow each one of these people in this room to experience it as we go through this.

We hope that our hearts and minds would be more prepared to think about what you're gonna do, that we would have the mind of Colossians 3 2, that we would have our minds set on things above and not things upon this earth, and that we would constantly be praying.

Come, Lord Jesus, come, your kingdom come.

We are so looking forward to that, and how exciting that is.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.