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And welcome back, everybody.

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It's so good to be back this week.

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Actually getting started right on time tonight.

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I like it.

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How's y'all's week been?

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Brother Dennis, how's your week been?

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Good so far.

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Good so far, man.

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Just kind of a little busy just doing honeydew stuff today.

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So that's pretty good.

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No stress.

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No stress.

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Just retired life.

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Yeah.

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See, he knows how to do it right.

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Yeah.

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I did a lot, though.

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I got to say I did a lot.

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And that's okay.

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As long as you're not having to for a paycheck, it makes it different.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Want to versus have to is always a good thing.

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Until Diane puts a time clock on the wall.

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See how long it actually worked today.

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and how about you brother brian you doing good this week yes sir good so far good so good yeah

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we had a great uh ordination service for our newest deacon last night and boy that was that

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was wonderful and great way to start start off the week in my opinion that that's a good one because

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uh we had brother seanathan bell who has been on the show uh a while back for us and he came and

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actually did the charge for him and preached a little bit to all of us and boy that was that was

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nice.

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Yeah, that's good.

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As we're about to dive in tonight, last week we stopped at the end of Revelation 2-7 with

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the end of the information going to the church at Ephesus, and we're going into the church

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of Smyrna tonight.

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So we'll be getting started on that.

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I saw a little video earlier this week with something that we've brought up a time or

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two on this show, and man, I'd never heard it explained so well.

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Nick Freitas, he's a legislature out in Virginia.

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He's a good guy.

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And really good guy, but he was talking about his biggest regret as a Christian.

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And he said it's failing to remember that sometimes winning the argument is not nearly as important as keeping your witness.

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And as doing what we were called to do and spreading the gospel.

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And he told a story of a time that he was in a debate with a guy who was a friend of his that was an atheist.

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And it was about whether or not God existed.

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And in the middle of the debate, the guy suddenly looked at him and said, does God send people that committed suicide to hell?

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And Nick was like, what?

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That's the most red herring argument to bring up in the middle of this debate.

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And he's like, man, whether or not they do is beside the point as to whether or not there's a God.

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And he said, that's a total red herring.

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You know it is.

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You shouldn't be even bringing something like that up.

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And the guy kind of left.

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And after he got done with the conversation, a friend of his walked over and he said, hey, man, do you know why he asked you that?

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No, no.

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Why did he ask me that?

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He said, his wife, not too long ago.

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Oh, ouch.

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Yeah.

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And he said, and then I realized I had a friend that was hurting and needed the love of Christ, but I was so concerned with winning the argument.

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Yeah.

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I dropped the ball.

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Yeah.

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Man, he told that story and I went, ouch.

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How many times have I, you know, Facebook arguments or whatever, see somebody bring up something irrelevant and not going, hey, what?

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Hang on a second.

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That's not what we're talking about.

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Why are you bringing that up?

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What's going on?

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Yeah.

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Like, and even, and he talks about, he said, if I had it to do over again, he said, I would

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have stopped right then and said, Hey buddy, what, why is that so important to suddenly

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bring up right now?

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You know, that's not what we're talking about.

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What's going on.

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Let's hold up a minute.

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And he's, and I thought, man, I have, I know I do that.

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I get, I get into the back and forth and get to go in and, and want to, you know, I want

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to score those points.

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That's not what we're called to do as Christians.

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I mean, there's a time and a place for that.

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But when something like that comes in, we really need to learn to pump the brakes and go, hey, what's going on here?

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What are you really winning?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Because, yeah, you won the argument, but you lost the person.

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And what a perfect time that would have been to share truth with him, to share the gospel with him and let him know that, hey, if your wife was a born again believer.

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It don't matter.

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It doesn't matter.

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She's in heaven today.

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Yeah.

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And that's the thing.

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That's that's just it.

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So when we're studying this stuff and we're learning this stuff, and be it a nonbeliever or even sometimes be it another Christian, even with stuff like the book of Revelation, sometimes the answer is just kind of pump the brakes and go, hey, you know what?

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What are we talking about here?

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Why are we bringing this up?

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Let's have a conversation, you and me, that has nothing to do with the deep theological discussion that we were just having.

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And do we need to pray together?

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Do I need to be there for you as a brother?

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or as a sister.

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And I thought, man, that was just a really good lesson.

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We've talked about that multiple times on here, that truth with love.

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And sometimes that's an area where discernment, discernment, discernment, discernment.

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That's what I was going to say.

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Discernment has to come in there.

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We have to know when to step back.

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We love knowledge, don't we?

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We love to have knowledge about every little tiny factoid piece of trivia about the Bible.

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But there's a reason for the knowledge.

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The knowledge leads to wisdom.

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Right.

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Right. And to understanding of who God is and what he's doing and how to treat other people.

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That's right. Right.

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Amen.

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And what a good God we do have that we can give an answer when somebody says that.

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Because, I mean, that is if you know anything about or if you've ever known anybody that was brought up in, you know, under Catholicism and stuff like that, they do teach that that is a sin that is just totally unforgivable.

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If you commit suicide, you're going to hell and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

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There's no indulgences.

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There's no buying your way out.

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It's just over.

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And it's like, wow, you're completely ignoring all of the things that Christ did up to that point that a moment of human weakness.

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And I mean, it is.

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It's something where it's horrible.

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It's an awful thing.

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But a moment of human weakness, a moment of our sin.

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Not only a weakness, but just a moment of losing your mind, you know, whether it be for a moment or whatever.

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They're not in the right place.

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They're not in their right mind during that time.

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And the Bible tells us, I know we're not getting into the whole theology of it,

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but the Bible tells us that there's one unforgivable sin,

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and that sin is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

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And basically what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is is not accepting truth,

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not accepting Christ as Savior before you die.

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And then after you die, it's too late.

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Exactly.

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And it is.

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It's that rejection.

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And then, and yes, if you died lost, but it doesn't matter the way you went out at that

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point, it's the fact that you died without Christ that you never accepted.

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And if you died with a performative faith, and that's as far as it ever went, and you

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never accepted, just because you go to church, you may be a member of a church.

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That's right.

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But if you never accepted Christ in your heart, and that's something that you have to work

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out, says with fear and trembling, that's how we work out our salvation.

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And it comes down to a misunderstanding of salvation to begin with, right?

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They think that's unforgivable because you don't have a chance to go to a priest to ask for forgiveness or you don't have a chance to go to God to ask for forgiveness because you're dead now.

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Right.

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But they don't understand that once you're saved, you're locked in.

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You're sealed with the Holy Spirit.

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You're adopted as his child.

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That's right.

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All these things happen.

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You're justified.

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You're forgiven.

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All these things are permanent.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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They're permanent.

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It's just like being born of your mother physically.

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Right.

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You can't take that back.

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No.

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Right.

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And you can't take a spiritual birth back.

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You can't be unborn.

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Right.

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That's what Jesus told, was it Nicodemus?

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Nicodemus.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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He starts asking those kind of questions.

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Yeah.

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He's like, yeah, you have to be born again.

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I go back in the spirit.

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I may have threatened to put my kids back in there before, but.

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Yeah, I don't think Nicole would feel better.

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Yeah, she would.

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Especially when they were 13.

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Yeah, honey, this ain't going to work.

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Oh, man.

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Anyway, we better start on a relationship.

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I think so.

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But yeah, let's do remember that as we go through.

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Remember that as we learn things about the scripture and as we get deeper into it, sometimes we do have to take that step back and just say, hey, this isn't an argument about theology or about whether or not God is real.

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This is somebody that's hurting and needing some help.

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Be willing to reach out and be that hand.

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Yeah.

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And that's why I love these letters to the churches at first of Revelation, you know.

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And Jesus breaks it down earlier in chapter one.

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It says he's going to show you the things that, how do you put it?

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I can't remember which verse it's in.

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Things that were, the things which are, and the things which will come after this.

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He breaks the whole book down for us, right?

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And the things which are are these letters to the churches, right?

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And this applies to our church.

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It applies to every church.

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It applies to people, individuals.

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And man, we need to really be studying these more.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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And apply it.

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Take the lessons and apply it to our lives.

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So let's dive in, starting with Revelation 2.8.

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And we're going to be going with the letter to the church, to the angel of the church in Smyrna.

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So it says, and unto the angel of the church in Smyrna, write these things, sayeth the first and the last, which was dead and is alive.

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And if you're not, I know not every Bible has the red letters, but if you do, you know that these are the words of Jesus Christ.

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Not Jesus Christ in a grave, but Jesus Christ alive and on the throne.

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Right.

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And so he begins to, and he quoted from the first chapter is what he was doing here.

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And I believe to give us hope, to give hope to the persecuted church that was going on there, that he had, that Jesus had overcome.

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That I'm alive, and because I'm alive, you will make it through this.

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You'll get through this persecution.

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You'll get through this time.

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it's estimated that over five million believers died for the cause of christ during this period

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of time five million believers were executed and were uh murdered and become martyrs for the cause

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of christ and it's so cool too how in each of these letters he's he describes himself in a way

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that they need to hear yeah right yeah i'm the eternal one yes i died too that's right that's

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living forever yeah yeah right man amen it gives them something to hang on to doesn't it yeah yeah

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he's always always encouraging us amen amen uh you got anything else no no okay okay sorry

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i didn't want to step like it when i get into this sometimes i get carried away and i was like

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hey hold up brown shut up okay we'll throw a shoe at you or something man yeah

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don't hit my head that's the it won't do you good

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verse 9 listen i want to read verse 9 and 10 together um i know that works in tribulation and

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poverty but thou art rich and i know that i know the blasphemy of them which say they are jews and

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are not but are the synagogue of satan fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer behold the

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devil shall cast them, some of you into prison, that you may be tried and you may have tribulation

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10 days. Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life. So these works or the

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word works here was not in some of the earlier manuscripts, if you study into that. But these

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There's seven things that the Lord commended here.

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One, a tribulation.

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He's not talking about the great tribulation, but he was talking about you're going to go through some tough times.

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Yeah.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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Two was poverty.

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They were going to be lacking in material possessions, and the church was made up at that time really of a poor class of people.

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Yeah.

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They weren't the rich of the wealthy of the wealthy.

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when someone rich did trust in christ and join the church their property was basically confiscated

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because of their faith uh they they were that was part of the punishment that they had from the

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outside uh world but but notice that they were rich spiritually yeah unlike what we'll see of the

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church of laodicea who was poor spiritually this church is rich spiritually they've got something

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Yeah, I started to say, you know, and that that part that you were just talking about there is to me one of the greatest testaments of the truth of the scripture and the truth of Christianity, because unlike most other religions that started with people who were very wealthy and were well to do and continued to be wealthy and well to do after the religion got started.

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Yeah. Right. They continue to be well. I mean, even even if you look at at things like over in Buddhism where you have people that they have nothing, but then go look at their temple sometime. Yeah. You know, it's like, goodness, that thing is is worth millions and billions of dollars, you know, way back in the day. And it's like, what in the world? I mean, these are massive temples where they had everything provided for them.

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You know, even things like that, whereas Christianity was started and it started spreading amongst the poor.

255
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The people in charge were not wealthy.

256
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They were not treated well by the government.

257
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They were not running things.

258
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House churches.

259
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Yeah, they were they were underground in the house.

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This was started by faith.

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And I think people forget that sometimes the early church suffered from day one.

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It wasn't something where they were founded in richness and then went through a short period of suffering and then came back to richness like we see in the Catholic Church today.

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As far as the church itself, again, not necessarily the members, but the church body.

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And even some non-Catholic churches here in America, you go look at them and it's like, hey, they don't have to worry about anything.

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They don't worry from one Sunday to the next how they're going to keep the lights on or whether they're going to have any money in the treasury.

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you know they they got enough to last them for years if nobody ever gives another dime and they're

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just bringing in more that's not the early church when we talk about the early church you got to

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think about the churches in china and places like that where it's outlawed and it's illegal and

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they were being hunted yeah and if they had anything they take they took it from and and

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and you know today we've got a lot of churches i mean even even a lot of small churches that

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if you looked at their bank account, you would think, my goodness, you know, there's churches

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three times their size that does not have the amount of money that they have in their bank

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account. But they're sitting over there in a building that they've barely done anything to.

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They've just barely kept it up. There's no mission work. There's no evangelism. There's no outreach.

275
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There's no children in their church because they don't do any of those things. They love to keep

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it a family little unit you know and hey if you're an outsider don't come into our church and you know

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and try to interrupt what we're doing here and that church i i mean it'll be one of the churches

278
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probably still be having church after after the rapture takes place right yeah i mean well well

279
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what if we need a new roof brother brian what if the air conditioning goes out you know yeah there's

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no faith in this thing at all no no i had a um uh i had a pastor tell me a church he was pastor

281
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and they um they were they were voting on uh on some mission work that they were going to do

282
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and um and they uh they had a plan out and it was a great it was going to be a great mission uh

283
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mission work that was going to last them several years think some things that they were going to do

284
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and the church shot it down somebody brought up uh paving the parking lot which was fine the

285
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parking lot was good they just need to be resealed and that kind of thing but not really that bad

286
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uh it was a unanimous vote for that but they voted down the mission mark

287
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i mean are we missing are we missing the boat here i started to say and it's it's exactly what

288
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you said some sometimes you have these people that are just not putting the faith where it

289
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that, look, God's going to provide what we need.

290
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And once you get to the point that you've had to grow or whatever, the worst thing you can

291
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do as a church is start pushing growth over pushing truth.

292
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:32,480
And you get so focused on growth that, yeah, you got this nice big building.

293
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You got tens of thousands of people that come.

294
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But if they're not getting any truth, all you're doing is just leading a bunch of people

295
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to hell.

296
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And it's like, you know, it's the same thing there.

297
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And then I look at churches like there was this little tiny church over in North Carolina.

298
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that actually had some outsiders come in and basically shut them down because they stole everything they had.

299
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But that little old church started literally in a guy's apartment and slowly built up.

300
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And then when they were at their largest and they were booming, man, the outreaches, the ministries,

301
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they had a daycare going because it was something for the members.

302
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The church members didn't have to pay.

303
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They just came and used it and they had free childcare when they needed to go to work.

304
00:19:18,260 --> 00:19:22,640
And then they had a Spanish language ministry with a Spanish church that had a Spanish pastor

305
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taking their old church building.

306
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And they were just here.

307
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Y'all just use it.

308
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No money being exchanged.

309
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Just use our building.

310
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And I thought, that's how you know God's blessing when you're in a position to do that.

311
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And they weren't worried about, well, what happens if our money runs out?

312
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They're just like, well, we're just doing what God told us to do.

313
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And it kept going.

314
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And then the minute somebody got in there and got focused on me, me, me, me, me, me, me,

315
00:19:44,500 --> 00:19:46,600
look at what we're going to do, we're going to grow

316
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:48,680
our stuff, we're going to do our little pet projects

317
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that have nothing to do with actually the gospel

318
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but we put the name gospel on them,

319
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they

320
00:19:55,020 --> 00:19:56,760
turn around and all of a sudden all our money

321
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is gone and the church is falling apart

322
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and all of our stuff is gone and

323
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we're having to possibly have our land

324
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taken away and we're having

325
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and it's like, goodness!

326
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I know that

327
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the Lord wants us to be good stewards of our money

328
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all the way around.

329
00:20:12,140 --> 00:20:17,240
within the church too not just you know not just throwing it out there and spending it on nothing

330
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:22,940
and but you know we're to keep up the god's house and the building and the property and those kinds

331
00:20:22,940 --> 00:20:29,680
of things don't get me wrong when i say that but otherwise i think that we as a church should be

332
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always looking for new ways to give our money away yeah and i mean to further the gospel you know i

333
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:40,160
I mean, we're not a bank.

334
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:43,120
We're not supposed to just hang on to every dime.

335
00:20:43,620 --> 00:20:45,060
You keep enough to operate.

336
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You keep enough to keep things going and keep things up, of course.

337
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But other than that, we need to be looking for ways that we can further the gospel.

338
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And if we can pour into a mission, if we can pour into somebody within the church,

339
00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:04,380
maybe they've got something that God's put on their heart.

340
00:21:04,500 --> 00:21:08,060
Whatever it is, we need to be looking for ways to do that.

341
00:21:08,790 --> 00:21:17,880
And I hope that when the Lord comes back that our bank account is pretty much empty, you know, because we've done everything we could possibly do for him.

342
00:21:18,460 --> 00:21:24,620
And I think that we get to a certain point sometimes in growth, like you were talking about.

343
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And when we start growing in numbers, what we've really got to be careful of is to start with, we may be discipling people.

344
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But as we grow, we don't change the way that we disciple.

345
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And I'm not saying that we change the word or the content of discipleship.

346
00:21:43,740 --> 00:21:49,860
But as you grow, you're going to have to – you've got to make disciples to make disciples.

347
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:58,420
And so I think as you grow and you get to a certain point, if you're not keeping up with that, then you're just getting a bunch of numbers.

348
00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:02,240
but you've got the same number of disciples there,

349
00:22:03,100 --> 00:22:05,060
but you're not making new disciples, right?

350
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:11,220
And then what happens when those disciples leave or die off or, you know, whatever,

351
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:15,320
or those people are not getting fed or they're not getting what they need,

352
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then they're going to go somewhere else.

353
00:22:17,180 --> 00:22:17,360
Yeah.

354
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:18,640
Anyway.

355
00:22:21,700 --> 00:22:22,320
Anything else?

356
00:22:24,700 --> 00:22:28,420
Yeah, I think this is, well, we got down to verse 10, right?

357
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,180
But he's warned them.

358
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:35,060
There's a thing about here about 10 days, and this is a big mystery.

359
00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:37,000
I was reading up on that.

360
00:22:37,140 --> 00:22:39,740
Nobody really knows for sure exactly what that means,

361
00:22:40,050 --> 00:22:42,600
whether that's a literal 10 days that they're about to suffer

362
00:22:42,710 --> 00:22:44,160
or some symbolic thing.

363
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:45,540
You don't know.

364
00:22:47,100 --> 00:22:51,220
It could be saying, well, next to eternity it's nothing.

365
00:22:52,180 --> 00:22:53,380
We're not real sure.

366
00:22:53,660 --> 00:22:57,740
But there was a lot of persecution of the church by Rome during that time.

367
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,920
So it did come to pass for sure.

368
00:23:02,020 --> 00:23:02,800
Yeah, absolutely.

369
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:04,840
We just don't really know how long.

370
00:23:05,010 --> 00:23:07,500
And I've just always been curious about what the 10 days is.

371
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:09,480
I really don't know, to be honest.

372
00:23:09,780 --> 00:23:16,720
Nobody knows for sure, but there were 10 intense periods of time under Roman emperors.

373
00:23:17,120 --> 00:23:28,420
Like you just said, Domitian from Nero from 64 to 68, Paul was beheaded under his reign.

374
00:23:29,300 --> 00:23:33,860
Domitian, 95 to 96, John was executed during that period.

375
00:23:34,700 --> 00:23:39,860
Trajan, 104 to 117, Ignatius was burned at the stake.

376
00:23:40,500 --> 00:23:45,120
Marcus Aurelius, 161 to 180, Polychart was martyred.

377
00:23:45,680 --> 00:24:01,240
And then it goes on, Severus and Maximus and Diocese and Valerian and Aurelian and Diocletian, which they say was the worst emperor of all times as far as towards the church.

378
00:24:03,020 --> 00:24:08,900
Those were 10 very intense periods of time for the church.

379
00:24:09,060 --> 00:24:10,700
Now, is that what he's focusing on?

380
00:24:10,700 --> 00:24:12,700
I don't know, but that number does work out.

381
00:24:12,940 --> 00:24:13,260
It does.

382
00:24:13,580 --> 00:24:16,060
If you look at these churches, it's like time periods.

383
00:24:16,290 --> 00:24:16,400
Yeah.

384
00:24:16,550 --> 00:24:16,660
Yeah.

385
00:24:16,980 --> 00:24:17,340
Yeah, definitely.

386
00:24:18,100 --> 00:24:18,160
Yeah.

387
00:24:18,230 --> 00:24:21,340
And there were some guys in there that are just rank.

388
00:24:21,420 --> 00:24:21,560
Right.

389
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:22,380
I mean, like Nero.

390
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,480
Nero's the one that fiddled while Rome burned.

391
00:24:24,730 --> 00:24:24,820
Yeah.

392
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:30,900
And after that, this was the guy around the late 60s AD, right before they destroyed Jerusalem.

393
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:36,600
This is a guy that would stick people on poles and set them on fire for his parties.

394
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:37,060
Yeah.

395
00:24:37,290 --> 00:24:37,400
Yeah.

396
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:38,460
And then leave them there.

397
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,080
Persecuting Christians, blaming the Christians for Rome burning.

398
00:24:41,300 --> 00:24:41,440
Right.

399
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:42,480
Yeah, absolutely.

400
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:43,600
Just rough.

401
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:44,380
It is.

402
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:48,600
Yeah, that was some terrible, terrible times that the church was going through.

403
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,000
He also talked about in those verses blasphemy,

404
00:24:53,300 --> 00:24:57,020
blasphemy of them which say that they are Jews but are of the synagogue of Satan.

405
00:24:57,050 --> 00:25:01,240
In other words, they had given up their identity is what they had done.

406
00:25:01,470 --> 00:25:04,500
They had taken in ungodly practices.

407
00:25:05,740 --> 00:25:11,500
The people of the church in Smyrna were followers of Christ inwardly and outwardly.

408
00:25:12,020 --> 00:25:15,900
It was here, and it was also on the outside.

409
00:25:16,130 --> 00:25:21,220
It was what we're talking about, the church that does what they're supposed to do from the inside out.

410
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:22,280
Right.

411
00:25:22,380 --> 00:25:26,500
That ties in with what Paul said in Romans 2, 28.

412
00:25:26,770 --> 00:25:26,880
He said,

413
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:32,520
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.

414
00:25:33,140 --> 00:25:34,920
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly.

415
00:25:35,060 --> 00:25:38,720
And circumcision is that which is of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter.

416
00:25:38,930 --> 00:25:40,960
And his praise is not from men, but from God.

417
00:25:41,060 --> 00:25:41,300
Amen.

418
00:25:41,730 --> 00:25:41,860
Amen.

419
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,540
Yeah, and then in Romans 9, 6, he said,

420
00:25:45,010 --> 00:25:47,480
Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect,

421
00:25:47,730 --> 00:25:50,840
for they are not all Israel which are of Israel.

422
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,200
Some of them are not who they say they are.

423
00:25:53,420 --> 00:25:54,880
They say they're one thing.

424
00:25:55,980 --> 00:26:01,240
I was telling my daughter, one of my daughters, just a couple of days ago,

425
00:26:01,940 --> 00:26:04,740
you can look around sometimes at Christian people.

426
00:26:05,020 --> 00:26:08,800
I had this idea, and I think I've talked about this on here before,

427
00:26:09,360 --> 00:26:14,240
I had this idea growing up because my parents were good Christian people.

428
00:26:14,700 --> 00:26:22,080
And I really was, I guess, sheltered in a lot of ways growing up until I busted out of the shelter myself.

429
00:26:24,030 --> 00:26:25,820
But, you know, my parents didn't drink.

430
00:26:27,799 --> 00:26:30,040
There was not alcohol in my refrigerator.

431
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,240
We went to church every time the doors were open.

432
00:26:33,340 --> 00:26:41,120
And I know that not everybody gets that, but I was naive to the fact that if you went to church, that that wasn't who you were, too.

433
00:26:41,340 --> 00:26:45,660
You know, I watched my dad and my mom live out Christ in front of me.

434
00:26:46,260 --> 00:26:56,600
And then as I got older and into my teenage years and went to different people's houses and places like that, I realized really quick that, hey, you know, this guy goes to church on Sunday.

435
00:26:56,940 --> 00:26:59,860
But this guy, this dad's not like my dad.

436
00:27:00,220 --> 00:27:02,000
You know, he doesn't talk like him.

437
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:03,140
He doesn't act like him.

438
00:27:03,700 --> 00:27:07,580
And when he's outside the church, he certainly is not a representative of Christ.

439
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,180
And so that's the way it is in the world that we live in.

440
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:12,540
It is.

441
00:27:12,730 --> 00:27:14,760
A lot of camouflage Christians, too, right?

442
00:27:14,940 --> 00:27:16,060
Well, it's the camouflage.

443
00:27:16,450 --> 00:27:26,720
And I think, too, this is where, again, the discipleship and the mentorship within the church comes from or should be applying because it takes work.

444
00:27:26,980 --> 00:27:32,760
I mean, there is an amount of work that you have to do to live a Christian life, not to be saved.

445
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:40,380
salvation's 100% Jesus and nothing but there's work that you have to do to actually live the

446
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:45,140
life that Christ has called us to to abide in him right yeah it's got to be real yeah it's got to

447
00:27:45,140 --> 00:27:50,120
be real and we talked about that a little bit in Sunday school how how do you combat this thing

448
00:27:50,620 --> 00:27:54,320
going out in the world and wanting to act like the world again you know we've always got that pull

449
00:27:54,620 --> 00:28:00,119
yeah it's always pulling on us yeah but it's got to be real you got to be walking with him every

450
00:28:00,140 --> 00:28:05,400
day and you got to be ready in season and out of season right yeah it's if it's not real you're

451
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:10,980
going to fall that's right i think there's such a fine line because you know it i'm not saying it's

452
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:16,160
easy to live a christian life okay and i think i think sometimes as we say these things people

453
00:28:16,220 --> 00:28:22,479
come across like oh you know so you're mr perfect no i'm not mr perfect i have bad thoughts uh you

454
00:28:22,500 --> 00:28:32,500
know i i i trip up i stumble at times uh but but i really want to live for jesus i really my heart

455
00:28:32,500 --> 00:28:37,200
is to live for jesus and i don't know any other way to say it i don't i don't know any other way

456
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:43,560
to explain it is i i want to i want to honor him with my life do i always do that no but i think

457
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:50,719
we can also get caught up in the whole well you know i'm not perfect and well you know i mean i'm

458
00:28:50,740 --> 00:28:58,900
not jesus jesus could have done this but i couldn't but we really we really uh defile what he told us

459
00:28:58,980 --> 00:29:04,620
that you know that he lives inside of us be you holy for i am holy uh we have the ability because

460
00:29:05,180 --> 00:29:12,060
jesus lives inside of us to walk away from sin to to find a door out of sin to not do the things that

461
00:29:12,100 --> 00:29:20,780
we fall into so many times and i think that we can get caught up in in the uh uh in the excuse of

462
00:29:21,300 --> 00:29:28,320
i'm only human you know right and then and then we just do whatever we want to do it is it is it's

463
00:29:28,550 --> 00:29:34,380
yeah we get about the power that's living inside of it yeah yeah raise jesus from the dead amen

464
00:29:34,570 --> 00:29:42,060
the dunamis power of god wow we just don't think about it no no we don't we should decide and go

465
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:49,080
our day yeah gosh i i long to see a church that does i long to see a church i mean uh sunday was

466
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:54,660
good yeah sunday awesome sermon too by the way i appreciate that i do but man just to watch god's

467
00:29:54,800 --> 00:30:01,580
people move and the last two sundays just really uh have moved and and and i just pray i just pray

468
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:06,720
god just don't let don't let up and don't let us let up yeah you know let's just keep going

469
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:17,220
but he tells them uh you know he says fear none of these things um in other words don't worry

470
00:30:17,430 --> 00:30:24,820
right i've got you i'm holding on to you i've done this too yes yeah again i've been through it i've

471
00:30:24,820 --> 00:30:32,240
been through it also uh he says the devil shall cast some of you into prison uh christ gets to

472
00:30:32,260 --> 00:30:37,640
the root of the problem and the root of the problem is Satan the root of the problem is sin yeah you

473
00:30:37,650 --> 00:30:43,340
know and so he gives them he gives them the root of the problem there yeah that's that's the root

474
00:30:43,340 --> 00:30:47,640
of the problem still today right you look around the world and everything that's wrong today is

475
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:53,640
sin in the human heart it really is selfishness and power and all these things people go after

476
00:30:53,860 --> 00:31:00,320
yeah yeah it's all sin it is it is we've been defiled by by sin we like to think of the you know

477
00:31:00,260 --> 00:31:06,060
another president or another congressman or another this or another that's going to fix everything,

478
00:31:06,420 --> 00:31:08,200
a new law or something.

479
00:31:08,660 --> 00:31:09,360
It's not.

480
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:11,140
New laws make new lawbreakers.

481
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:11,620
That's right.

482
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:13,560
That's really all it does.

483
00:31:13,700 --> 00:31:14,200
You're right.

484
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,200
It's another law to be broken at.

485
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:17,580
Yeah, absolutely.

486
00:31:18,420 --> 00:31:18,540
Absolutely.

487
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:24,480
Then he tells them at the end there, he says, be thou faithful unto death.

488
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:25,500
Wow.

489
00:31:25,820 --> 00:31:27,420
What a statement that is, right?

490
00:31:27,620 --> 00:31:28,840
And they were faithful.

491
00:31:28,990 --> 00:31:33,500
And there will be special crowns for those who suffer, right?

492
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:35,780
There's a crown for the martyr.

493
00:31:37,820 --> 00:31:43,520
And James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ of the 12 tribes,

494
00:31:43,630 --> 00:31:46,300
which are scattered abroad, greeting my brethren,

495
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,000
count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations,

496
00:31:50,540 --> 00:31:54,420
knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

497
00:31:55,420 --> 00:32:00,300
And then he says in James 1, that was 1 through 3, but in James 12,

498
00:32:01,100 --> 00:32:04,560
blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried,

499
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:09,820
he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

500
00:32:10,100 --> 00:32:10,320
Yeah.

501
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:12,840
So there's a crown for those who suffer.

502
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:13,380
Yeah.

503
00:32:13,900 --> 00:32:14,020
Amen.

504
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:14,440
Amen.

505
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,380
I like, too, he says, be faithful until death.

506
00:32:17,540 --> 00:32:20,820
And we want to live for Christ.

507
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:21,380
Yeah.

508
00:32:21,620 --> 00:32:22,860
Do we want to die for Christ?

509
00:32:22,980 --> 00:32:23,360
That's right.

510
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:24,120
That's right.

511
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:24,640
Amen.

512
00:32:25,060 --> 00:32:25,300
Right.

513
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:25,900
Amen.

514
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:27,700
It comes right down to it.

515
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:32,120
I think these martyrs get down to it wondering, can I do this?

516
00:32:32,150 --> 00:32:32,660
Can I do this?

517
00:32:32,670 --> 00:32:34,700
And I think the Holy Spirit gives them that.

518
00:32:35,140 --> 00:32:35,260
Yeah.

519
00:32:35,260 --> 00:32:35,640
You know?

520
00:32:36,060 --> 00:32:36,140
Yeah.

521
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,920
I think they bear up under it because the Spirit takes over.

522
00:32:40,180 --> 00:32:40,580
Absolutely.

523
00:32:40,850 --> 00:32:41,580
Yeah, like Stephen.

524
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,080
We talked about that a little bit, I think, in my session.

525
00:32:45,740 --> 00:32:48,880
I mean, it was like Paul looking at Stephen.

526
00:32:49,220 --> 00:32:50,160
How's he handling this?

527
00:32:50,300 --> 00:32:51,260
How's he getting through this?

528
00:32:51,310 --> 00:32:52,560
And I think it does.

529
00:32:52,700 --> 00:32:58,700
I think the Holy Spirit just brings a comfort and peace over them that they just, you know,

530
00:32:58,900 --> 00:32:59,880
God, I've got you.

531
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,340
I'm bringing you out of this life into the next.

532
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:05,820
I see the Son of God.

533
00:33:06,940 --> 00:33:07,380
Yeah.

534
00:33:09,660 --> 00:33:16,140
That had to be such an incredible thing to hear from those that were there doing what they were doing,

535
00:33:16,270 --> 00:33:19,000
and they're stoning him, and all of a sudden he says, yeah, looky there.

536
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,040
And it's like, what in the world?

537
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:23,000
I mean, they already thought he was crazy.

538
00:33:23,260 --> 00:33:28,160
I always get this picture of Paul just standing there with his coats going, huh?

539
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:28,900
Yeah.

540
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:31,640
This guy just went into full worship mode.

541
00:33:31,820 --> 00:33:32,020
Yeah.

542
00:33:32,300 --> 00:33:32,520
Yeah.

543
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:33,080
Right.

544
00:33:33,340 --> 00:33:33,440
Yeah.

545
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:40,520
And I'm standing here holding the coats of the people who, I mean, I think God began to work on him right then.

546
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:40,800
Oh, yeah.

547
00:33:41,020 --> 00:33:41,380
Right then.

548
00:33:41,710 --> 00:33:49,340
You know, before he even was on the road to Damascus, I think he was already working on him and preparing his heart.

549
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:54,880
Well, and I think that's probably why he studied so much and became so knowledgeable, because he was trying to figure this out.

550
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,580
What would make somebody do that?

551
00:33:57,880 --> 00:33:59,700
Yeah, and Paul was a brilliant guy.

552
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:01,300
He made him pretty mad, too, you know?

553
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,120
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

554
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,200
He was pretty angry at chasing down Christians.

555
00:34:05,380 --> 00:34:06,160
He was, yeah.

556
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:08,840
He thought he was doing something right, didn't he?

557
00:34:08,919 --> 00:34:09,560
Isn't that crazy?

558
00:34:10,140 --> 00:34:10,899
I don't know.

559
00:34:11,100 --> 00:34:15,860
I can't imagine there are that many people, evil people in history, that really thought they were doing the wrong thing.

560
00:34:15,940 --> 00:34:16,580
Yeah, yeah.

561
00:34:16,919 --> 00:34:19,500
Like a Hitler or somebody like that, they thought they were doing the right thing.

562
00:34:19,580 --> 00:34:19,679
Yeah.

563
00:34:19,940 --> 00:34:22,159
They're just 180 degrees off where they're supposed to be.

564
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:22,580
They are.

565
00:34:22,700 --> 00:34:22,820
Yeah.

566
00:34:23,100 --> 00:34:24,179
And it's satanic, really.

567
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:24,560
Oh, yeah.

568
00:34:24,720 --> 00:34:26,399
I mean, it's 100% satanic.

569
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:31,600
So, yeah, they've got a driving force behind them that tells them they're doing the right thing.

570
00:34:31,720 --> 00:34:31,919
Yeah.

571
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:37,000
It gives them reason and gives them excuse for all the things that they do.

572
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:37,399
Yeah.

573
00:34:37,639 --> 00:34:37,720
Yeah.

574
00:34:37,899 --> 00:34:38,000
Yeah.

575
00:34:39,020 --> 00:34:45,179
I was going to throw in real quick that the NIV, the translation of the crown of life, it says,

576
00:34:45,340 --> 00:34:50,419
And I will give you your life as I will give you life as your victor's crown.

577
00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:54,139
The NET translates it.

578
00:34:54,220 --> 00:34:57,000
I will give you the crown that is life itself, because that's the thing.

579
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:01,540
When you lay down your life for Christ, it's not over.

580
00:35:02,100 --> 00:35:03,140
It's just started.

581
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:05,940
We're just waking up in another place.

582
00:35:06,570 --> 00:35:07,520
You know, and that's the thing.

583
00:35:07,620 --> 00:35:08,660
We're getting that back.

584
00:35:08,670 --> 00:35:15,280
And that's and that, you know, that that should be something as Christians that should should absolutely energize you and make you bold.

585
00:35:15,300 --> 00:35:20,680
yeah yeah and that's that's something else that came up in sunday school night i surprised one of

586
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:26,800
our guys i kind of took a hard left turn on him but i told him i can guarantee everybody in this

587
00:35:26,980 --> 00:35:31,900
room unless a rapture comes first you are going to die yeah there's a hundred percent death rate in

588
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:38,020
this world yeah right we just don't know when that's right right that's right we were reading

589
00:35:38,140 --> 00:35:41,980
through second peter and uh he was saying that you know the lord has showed him he's about to die

590
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:48,600
soon right and i said what are we doing with it right yeah i might not make it home from church

591
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:53,520
today right that's right i might not live another week i might not live another month we're in the

592
00:35:53,620 --> 00:35:56,760
same boat peter was in right there when the lord had shown him that he was about to die

593
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:03,100
yeah we are going to die that's right what are we doing with it amen amen yeah we we know that

594
00:36:03,300 --> 00:36:09,460
death is coming what are we doing while or while we're waiting on death yeah we just think we got

595
00:36:09,460 --> 00:36:16,560
time yeah we do we do and we should especially as we get older we should realize that time is a

596
00:36:16,590 --> 00:36:25,140
thing yeah yeah yeah amen you want to read verse 11 yep uh well i'm i'm reading a different version

597
00:36:25,250 --> 00:36:30,400
i don't care that's good no that's new american standard it says he who has an ear let him hear

598
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:35,940
what the spirit says to the churches he who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death

599
00:36:36,260 --> 00:36:41,680
yeah yeah amen and this is where it gets personal in every letter right he who has an ear let him

600
00:36:41,700 --> 00:36:46,480
hear let him hear let him hear and the second death man what's that that's that's the that's

601
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:52,120
the lake of fire yeah at the at the great white thrones that's right that's right it is uh d.l

602
00:36:52,300 --> 00:36:59,380
moody put it like this he said he who is born once will die twice he who is born twice will die once

603
00:36:59,700 --> 00:36:59,780
Yeah.

604
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:01,140
It's good stuff, isn't it?

605
00:37:01,500 --> 00:37:02,000
Yeah, yeah.

606
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:03,640
Unless there's a rapture.

607
00:37:03,860 --> 00:37:05,500
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

608
00:37:06,060 --> 00:37:06,500
That's right.

609
00:37:07,660 --> 00:37:15,180
But, and I went ahead and noted under that, and for those who go in the rapture, those will not even die once, right?

610
00:37:15,540 --> 00:37:15,640
Right.

611
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:18,040
I noted that under that.

612
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,360
So, but the first death concerns the body.

613
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,740
The second death concerns the soul and the spirit.

614
00:37:25,420 --> 00:37:28,140
And it means eternal separation from God.

615
00:37:28,340 --> 00:37:29,060
Yeah, yeah.

616
00:37:29,300 --> 00:37:31,660
What a terrible, terrible death that is.

617
00:37:31,890 --> 00:37:32,000
Yeah.

618
00:37:32,860 --> 00:37:35,980
A really, really cool thing about this letter to Smyrna,

619
00:37:36,570 --> 00:37:39,100
they're the only one that gets no rebuke.

620
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:39,800
Yeah.

621
00:37:40,420 --> 00:37:40,520
Yeah.

622
00:37:41,060 --> 00:37:41,260
Yeah.

623
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:43,580
It doesn't have anything negative to say about it.

624
00:37:43,580 --> 00:37:43,960
Yeah.

625
00:37:45,060 --> 00:37:47,640
Man, can our church be like that?

626
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:48,220
Yeah.

627
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:49,720
Could our church be like that?

628
00:37:49,820 --> 00:37:53,260
And that's kind of the key from the persecution thing too, right?

629
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,600
I mean, they're going through this severe persecution.

630
00:37:55,710 --> 00:37:59,060
If this is an era of church history, that's a persecution time.

631
00:37:59,320 --> 00:37:59,500
Right.

632
00:37:59,780 --> 00:37:59,840
Right.

633
00:38:00,060 --> 00:38:01,620
And that's when the church is at its purest.

634
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:01,940
Yeah.

635
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:02,420
Yeah.

636
00:38:02,980 --> 00:38:03,060
Yeah.

637
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:11,000
Well, and I started to say, because I was about to say exactly that, because they're going through that persecution and they're remaining faithful.

638
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:12,080
That's the other thing.

639
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:13,240
He's encouraging them.

640
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:14,260
Keep doing what you're doing.

641
00:38:14,380 --> 00:38:15,000
Remain faithful.

642
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:15,680
Remain faithful.

643
00:38:15,780 --> 00:38:17,200
Remain faithful because you're already doing it.

644
00:38:17,260 --> 00:38:18,020
Just keep doing it.

645
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,400
What is there to come down on them about?

646
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:21,920
Yeah.

647
00:38:22,110 --> 00:38:22,240
Yeah.

648
00:38:22,290 --> 00:38:26,480
I mean, their choice is either remain faithful or reject.

649
00:38:26,810 --> 00:38:28,340
They don't get to sit on the fence.

650
00:38:28,510 --> 00:38:28,600
Yeah.

651
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:29,460
There is no fitting.

652
00:38:30,060 --> 00:38:34,820
You're either all in or you're walking away from it so you can try and save your life.

653
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,660
Yeah, and it says they're dirt poor, but not really.

654
00:38:37,900 --> 00:38:38,740
No, they're rich.

655
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:40,060
They're rich in Jesus.

656
00:38:40,720 --> 00:38:41,500
They're rich in Christ.

657
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:41,940
They're rich in heaven.

658
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,240
And we don't think we think about that either, right?

659
00:38:45,420 --> 00:38:47,520
Because we get so, woe is me.

660
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:48,980
We get so, why me?

661
00:38:49,260 --> 00:38:50,540
Why am I going through this?

662
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:51,820
Why am I facing this?

663
00:38:52,300 --> 00:38:54,820
You know, all these bills are coming in.

664
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:56,100
All these things are going on.

665
00:38:56,180 --> 00:38:56,980
And we all do it.

666
00:38:57,020 --> 00:39:04,060
I mean, I've let pressure of life and bills and business and all the things, you know, get to me.

667
00:39:04,260 --> 00:39:08,600
But, man, we are rich in Jesus, and we got something laid up for us in heaven.

668
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:09,280
Amen.

669
00:39:09,660 --> 00:39:13,460
And we can build treasures in heaven, right?

670
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:13,920
Absolutely.

671
00:39:14,260 --> 00:39:15,680
We need to be banking some stuff.

672
00:39:15,900 --> 00:39:16,060
That's right.

673
00:39:17,300 --> 00:39:18,580
Stacking coins, baby.

674
00:39:18,650 --> 00:39:19,440
Stacking coins, yeah.

675
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,040
But we don't sometimes, right?

676
00:39:23,140 --> 00:39:26,380
Sometimes we just spit steel, and we don't.

677
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,880
And it goes back to the parable of the coins, really.

678
00:39:32,660 --> 00:39:35,180
What are we going to do with what Jesus has given us, right?

679
00:39:35,260 --> 00:39:36,400
Yeah, you're going to bury it in the ground.

680
00:39:36,580 --> 00:39:37,020
Right, yeah.

681
00:39:37,460 --> 00:39:39,260
Are you going to invest it, right?

682
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,960
Are you going to invest it in something and make money off of it, right?

683
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:43,840
Is it going to build?

684
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:44,760
Is it going to grow?

685
00:39:45,180 --> 00:39:45,420
Yeah.

686
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:46,020
Amen.

687
00:39:48,020 --> 00:39:48,240
Amen.

688
00:39:49,020 --> 00:39:49,820
Verse number 12.

689
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:52,680
Verse number 12, that's where we're at, right?

690
00:39:52,780 --> 00:39:53,620
Yeah, Pergamum.

691
00:39:54,100 --> 00:40:04,060
And to the angel of the church of Pergamos, write these things, saith the Lord, he which hath a sharp sword with two edges.

692
00:40:06,319 --> 00:40:11,360
So Pergamum, Smyrna was the commercial center.

693
00:40:12,220 --> 00:40:14,240
Ephesus was the political center.

694
00:40:15,500 --> 00:40:18,920
And Pergamum was the religious center.

695
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:23,300
It was also a doorway to a pagan world.

696
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:25,920
and when you sit and think about that

697
00:40:26,550 --> 00:40:28,000
I want to go on and read verse 13

698
00:40:28,130 --> 00:40:29,580
it says I know thy works

699
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:31,480
and where thou dwellest even

700
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:33,460
where Satan's seed is

701
00:40:34,260 --> 00:40:36,120
and thou holdest fast my name

702
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:38,700
and hast not denied my faith

703
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:40,140
even in those days

704
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,680
where Antipas was my faithful martyr

705
00:40:43,020 --> 00:40:44,680
who was slain among you

706
00:40:45,240 --> 00:40:46,800
where Satan dwelleth

707
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,120
so of course we're speaking of the word of God

708
00:40:50,720 --> 00:40:52,900
and it was the only way

709
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:54,580
that this place could be reached.

710
00:40:55,260 --> 00:40:57,240
It was through the word of God,

711
00:40:57,290 --> 00:40:58,040
was through a martyr.

712
00:40:58,620 --> 00:40:59,800
And then verse 14 says,

713
00:40:59,860 --> 00:41:01,900
but I have a few things against thee

714
00:41:02,860 --> 00:41:04,040
because thou hast there them

715
00:41:04,300 --> 00:41:06,420
that hold the doctrine of Balaam

716
00:41:06,660 --> 00:41:10,280
who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block

717
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:11,560
before the children of Israel

718
00:41:11,630 --> 00:41:13,860
to eat things sacrificed unto idols

719
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,420
and to commit fornication.

720
00:41:17,460 --> 00:41:19,420
So three commendations,

721
00:41:19,900 --> 00:41:23,720
They knew they lived in a difficult area.

722
00:41:23,810 --> 00:41:29,420
They lived in Satan's territory, and any and every kind of religion went in this place.

723
00:41:29,530 --> 00:41:30,640
There were heathen temples.

724
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:32,440
They were defended.

725
00:41:33,340 --> 00:41:35,940
They also defended the deity of Christ.

726
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:42,440
They continued in by defending him and defending who he was.

727
00:41:43,250 --> 00:41:44,720
They continued in true doctrine.

728
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,340
But we don't know a lot about this martyr that they mention here.

729
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:50,580
Yeah.

730
00:41:52,260 --> 00:41:54,660
His name means against all.

731
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:55,360
Yeah.

732
00:41:56,020 --> 00:41:56,120
Yeah.

733
00:41:56,820 --> 00:41:56,960
Yeah.

734
00:41:57,380 --> 00:41:59,420
And that's really all we know.

735
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,420
It sounds like he was all alone there, you know?

736
00:42:01,540 --> 00:42:01,820
Yeah.

737
00:42:02,340 --> 00:42:03,120
By himself.

738
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:03,560
Yeah.

739
00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:05,680
All by myself.

740
00:42:05,780 --> 00:42:06,580
Oh, sing it, brother.

741
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:12,300
I was going to say give him a microphone, but he's got one.

742
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:12,960
He's got one.

743
00:42:13,500 --> 00:42:14,420
That's dangerous.

744
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:18,080
Ain't nothing young to well-towered and cut it off again.

745
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,700
But verse 15 kind of goes along with that, and it says,

746
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:30,600
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

747
00:42:31,060 --> 00:42:33,980
So this teaching of Balaam was the doctrine of Beglet,

748
00:42:34,180 --> 00:42:39,100
which taught Israel to intermarry with Moabite women,

749
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:43,800
which introduced them to fornication and idolatry.

750
00:42:45,140 --> 00:42:49,480
The Nicolaitans, they were some type of false doctrine that Jesus hated, too.

751
00:42:49,500 --> 00:42:52,480
I don't know exactly what they were or what they were.

752
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,860
By the way, this is the second time he's mentioned that.

753
00:42:56,060 --> 00:42:56,160
Yeah.

754
00:42:56,380 --> 00:43:00,360
Because he said to the church at Ephesus, there are some of you following this teaching.

755
00:43:00,720 --> 00:43:00,840
Yeah.

756
00:43:01,900 --> 00:43:03,420
And I hate that.

757
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,100
And it seems to tie it a little bit together with the teaching of Balaam.

758
00:43:06,300 --> 00:43:06,600
He does.

759
00:43:06,700 --> 00:43:06,800
Right.

760
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:07,140
Yeah.

761
00:43:07,220 --> 00:43:07,540
And this.

762
00:43:08,140 --> 00:43:08,840
Yeah, he does.

763
00:43:09,060 --> 00:43:10,200
So evidently they're –

764
00:43:10,220 --> 00:43:11,620
So immorality maybe is –

765
00:43:11,660 --> 00:43:12,740
Right, right, yeah.

766
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,600
And listen, you know, and I want to touch on the intermarrying thing too.

767
00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:21,620
Guys, and some of you may turn it off when we talk about this,

768
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,640
but we're not talking about color here.

769
00:43:25,670 --> 00:43:29,760
We're not talking about interracial marriage.

770
00:43:29,980 --> 00:43:34,680
We're talking about intermarrying with people who are not godly, right?

771
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,060
We're talking about unequally yoked people.

772
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:42,920
We're talking about tribes marrying into other tribes that were worshiping idols,

773
00:43:43,070 --> 00:43:50,840
that were sacrificing sometimes women and children, and just stomp.

774
00:43:50,850 --> 00:44:00,800
I mean, they were steeped into sexual sin and orgies and all these different things,

775
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:06,160
and these Christian people were just falling victim to this.

776
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:09,540
They were walking into this, and they were taking part in it.

777
00:44:10,210 --> 00:44:12,180
And God said, I don't like it at all.

778
00:44:12,340 --> 00:44:14,640
Same thing happened to Solomon, right?

779
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:16,760
He married all these women, and they led him astray.

780
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:18,040
Yeah, absolutely.

781
00:44:18,799 --> 00:44:21,140
And he warned them over and over and over in the promised land,

782
00:44:21,300 --> 00:44:25,280
don't intermarry with other people because they're going to drag you away from me.

783
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:27,580
And it's the same thing in today's world, right?

784
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,620
When we're unequally yoked, when a Christian marries a non-Christian,

785
00:44:31,260 --> 00:44:34,480
the non-Christian is going to have a lot more influence on that person than you think.

786
00:44:34,780 --> 00:44:34,980
Absolutely.

787
00:44:35,540 --> 00:44:35,840
Absolutely.

788
00:44:36,260 --> 00:44:45,160
I know people that I could name right now that have – sometimes it's not even Christians and non-Christians.

789
00:44:45,450 --> 00:44:49,680
I think it could be people with different denominational views, too.

790
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:56,060
I'm talking about some very, very different denominational views where they may say that they're Christians,

791
00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:03,840
but when they come in, they start butting heads on things, and they can't worship together.

792
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:09,420
They can't go to church together because of those big differences that they have.

793
00:45:09,450 --> 00:45:15,000
If they can't get in line with doctrinal issues and things, then it ends up being an issue and problem.

794
00:45:15,220 --> 00:45:15,680
Yeah, it does.

795
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:18,060
You need to make sure you take the time.

796
00:45:18,170 --> 00:45:25,980
If you are talking to somebody or you're dating someone or whatever, make sure you have those conversations about those doctrinal differences.

797
00:45:27,140 --> 00:45:31,060
because if you can't come to a place where the two things meet up

798
00:45:31,100 --> 00:45:34,360
and there's not enough overlap there, it's nothing but strife.

799
00:45:34,820 --> 00:45:35,700
It's nothing but strife.

800
00:45:35,860 --> 00:45:40,220
And a lot of times, especially if you haven't spent a lot of time in church

801
00:45:40,460 --> 00:45:41,620
with the person you're talking to,

802
00:45:42,540 --> 00:45:46,220
you can't be 100% sure that that person is actually a Christian.

803
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:49,520
They may pay lip service and go to a church with mom and dad or whatever,

804
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,260
but then once they're given the choice and they have the option,

805
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:55,800
they're just going to walk away because they're not actually interested in it.

806
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:56,980
They're not saved and they don't care.

807
00:45:57,220 --> 00:46:00,380
Yeah, and dating is a trial run.

808
00:46:01,060 --> 00:46:02,920
You're not locked into that person, right?

809
00:46:03,100 --> 00:46:03,240
Right.

810
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,340
And if your feelings are going through the roof, you know,

811
00:46:06,540 --> 00:46:09,540
you've got all this love stuff going on, and you may think,

812
00:46:09,740 --> 00:46:10,700
that's not a big deal.

813
00:46:10,900 --> 00:46:12,120
It's not going to be that big deal.

814
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,400
Ten years from now, it will be a very big deal.

815
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:15,600
Absolutely it will.

816
00:46:15,720 --> 00:46:16,120
Absolutely.

817
00:46:16,540 --> 00:46:24,319
And I've watched people who have married outside of their denominational belief

818
00:46:24,720 --> 00:46:28,440
and the husband go to one church and the wife go to another church.

819
00:46:28,940 --> 00:46:29,480
That's not good.

820
00:46:29,720 --> 00:46:30,540
Where do the kids go?

821
00:46:30,540 --> 00:46:31,020
That's not good.

822
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:35,320
Yeah, then if you bring kids into it, you're especially confusing them.

823
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:38,640
Like, you know, who's right, who's wrong, what's going on here?

824
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:45,880
So, yeah, very, very important that you not only marry someone who is a Christian,

825
00:46:46,620 --> 00:46:50,960
a Christian marrying a Christian, but also check them out

826
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,640
and make sure they believe the same things that you believe,

827
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,820
the core beliefs that you believe, right?

828
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,040
Yeah, make sure you can find that common ground

829
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,220
and find a church that has that common ground that you can both attend

830
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:05,820
because you're just asking for trouble.

831
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,220
I mean, you're looking at things falling apart,

832
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,440
and you point out 10 years down there, sometimes more like five.

833
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:14,840
I mean, it can happen real, real quick,

834
00:47:15,500 --> 00:47:18,500
especially when you start bringing, like you say, kids into the mix,

835
00:47:18,900 --> 00:47:20,240
and now you have that stress.

836
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,260
That is a lot of stress on a marriage.

837
00:47:23,300 --> 00:47:28,560
and you know that's again that's one of those things of remaining sexually pure until after

838
00:47:28,720 --> 00:47:33,300
you've been married and until you have that time with each other to get through those first few

839
00:47:33,460 --> 00:47:38,900
hurdles because going through those hurdles with children in the mix you're at an almost

840
00:47:39,780 --> 00:47:43,920
insurmountable obstacle in front of you i mean you're just asking for trouble uh what i was going

841
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:47,599
to point out real quick on the the nicolations there i had to look it up because i remember i

842
00:47:47,580 --> 00:47:48,580
I had looked it up last time.

843
00:47:49,660 --> 00:47:58,500
That was essentially the belief that Paul was preaching against when he said, you know, some say that, you know, send more so that grace may abound.

844
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,440
And he said, you know, no, no, no, that's not what we're talking about.

845
00:48:01,580 --> 00:48:06,160
You know, that's essentially what the teachings of the Nicolaitans was, was, oh, you're saved.

846
00:48:06,420 --> 00:48:07,920
Do what you want.

847
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:15,980
And it's like, no, Jesus, every time, every time he forgave somebody, he said, go and send no more.

848
00:48:16,140 --> 00:48:17,120
That was so important.

849
00:48:17,780 --> 00:48:30,160
And even again, it shows you how humans, we will so quickly just drop the ball on it because it's even in the early church, we were going, well, I mean, we got this grace thing.

850
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:31,320
We're not under the law anymore.

851
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:36,840
And it's like you're not even a century hardly removed from Christ yet.

852
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:42,620
And you already forgot that everybody he forgave and everybody he helped and everybody he directly interacted with.

853
00:48:42,660 --> 00:48:45,040
It was always go and sin no more.

854
00:48:45,580 --> 00:48:47,060
You're totally forgetting this?

855
00:48:47,310 --> 00:48:50,180
Like, do you think he just said that because he was Jewish?

856
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:50,760
Yeah.

857
00:48:51,430 --> 00:48:54,040
Peter referred to Paul that way, too, in 2 Peter 3.

858
00:48:54,580 --> 00:48:59,760
He's talking about also in all his letters, Paul's letters, speaking in them of these things,

859
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:03,320
and which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort,

860
00:49:03,630 --> 00:49:06,780
as they do also the rest of the Scriptures to their own destruction.

861
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:11,460
But before that, he's talking about being spotless and blameless.

862
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:11,820
Yeah.

863
00:49:12,130 --> 00:49:12,240
Yeah.

864
00:49:13,140 --> 00:49:13,280
Right?

865
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:13,740
Yeah.

866
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:15,340
And Paul says the same thing.

867
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:15,700
He does.

868
00:49:16,060 --> 00:49:16,520
He does.

869
00:49:16,790 --> 00:49:16,880
Absolutely.

870
00:49:17,340 --> 00:49:17,540
He does.

871
00:49:17,940 --> 00:49:23,960
But I think this Pergamum thing, the way I see this, this is a compromise.

872
00:49:24,860 --> 00:49:26,000
This is a compromise, right?

873
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,240
You remember the story of Balaam and Balak, right?

874
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:30,020
He's trying to get him to curse Israel.

875
00:49:30,180 --> 00:49:30,660
Curse Israel.

876
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:31,880
I'll give you some money.

877
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:32,280
Yeah.

878
00:49:32,460 --> 00:49:32,540
Right.

879
00:49:32,710 --> 00:49:35,000
And he's trying to curse Israel, and God won't let him.

880
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:35,300
Yeah.

881
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:40,600
So he sends a bunch of prostitutes down into the camp, and they compromise themselves with these prostitutes.

882
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:40,960
Yeah.

883
00:49:41,260 --> 00:49:44,200
And this is kind of the compromise that he's talking about with Pergamum.

884
00:49:44,220 --> 00:49:51,360
And I think in church history, this is leading up past that persecution where Constantine made it cool to be a Christian.

885
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:51,820
Yeah.

886
00:49:52,240 --> 00:49:57,340
He accepted Christianity as the official religion of Rome, and all of a sudden, everybody's a Christian now.

887
00:49:57,380 --> 00:49:57,480
Yeah.

888
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:03,760
Oh, they're outdoing each other, you know, and they're trying to – but these people are compromised big time.

889
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:04,160
Yeah.

890
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:04,560
Amen.

891
00:50:04,900 --> 00:50:05,140
Amen.

892
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:05,720
Amen.

893
00:50:06,460 --> 00:50:06,540
Yeah.

894
00:50:06,770 --> 00:50:11,140
And, of course, we don't live in a world where it's cool to be a Christian now for sure, do we?

895
00:50:11,240 --> 00:50:11,440
No.

896
00:50:11,660 --> 00:50:11,840
No.

897
00:50:12,260 --> 00:50:13,780
That's going to get less and less cool.

898
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:14,400
It is.

899
00:50:14,540 --> 00:50:14,980
It is.

900
00:50:15,070 --> 00:50:15,160
Yeah.

901
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:17,040
If you want to be different, be saved.

902
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:17,440
Yeah.

903
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:18,360
Get saved.

904
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:19,100
That's right.

905
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:20,360
You want to be a rebel.

906
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:20,780
Yeah.

907
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:21,780
Yeah, absolutely.

908
00:50:22,619 --> 00:50:23,180
Exactly right.

909
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:23,760
Yeah.

910
00:50:24,779 --> 00:50:25,140
Yeah.

911
00:50:26,660 --> 00:50:32,400
They're trying to stamp out, really just stamp out worship of the Lord at, you know, the Balaam story.

912
00:50:33,370 --> 00:50:34,600
And he found a way.

913
00:50:34,740 --> 00:50:35,160
He did.

914
00:50:35,460 --> 00:50:38,240
And they're teaching these same things in his church.

915
00:50:39,240 --> 00:50:39,300
Right?

916
00:50:39,580 --> 00:50:39,760
Yeah.

917
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:41,340
Just have a little fun over here.

918
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:42,420
You can do whatever you want.

919
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:42,780
It's okay.

920
00:50:43,180 --> 00:50:43,720
It's all right.

921
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:51,060
compromised saved yeah and i mean it's it's amazing the most of the blowback that you get if you if

922
00:50:51,060 --> 00:50:57,340
you post something on facebook that's uh that is is ultra conservative as far as christianity goes

923
00:50:57,910 --> 00:51:03,180
uh your kickback usually is not going to be from non-christians it's going to be from christians who

924
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:08,140
yeah well i don't believe i believe you can do this and you can get away with this

925
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:10,160
You know, and here's the thing.

926
00:51:10,380 --> 00:51:20,100
If you have to question what you're doing or you have to ask your pastor or you have to say, you know, like, do you think this is OK?

927
00:51:20,420 --> 00:51:24,840
You know, but but what we do is we try to justify things in our minds.

928
00:51:25,060 --> 00:51:33,800
Right. We try to we try to say, well, you know, the Bible doesn't have a specific about this one particular thing.

929
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:38,860
And we know that there's a lot of things that he covers a broad spectrum with, right?

930
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:46,860
But there's like, well, he doesn't mention this one particular – so I can get away with this or I can get away with this.

931
00:51:47,100 --> 00:51:57,520
And I think most Christians throughout their life, they spend more time trying to figure out what they can get away with than what they can do for the cause of Christ.

932
00:51:57,700 --> 00:51:57,800
Right.

933
00:51:57,980 --> 00:52:02,100
And one of the things I've heard, too, is that, well, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.

934
00:52:02,180 --> 00:52:02,400
Yeah.

935
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:07,520
No, but he said a lot about Adam and Eve and how God made them.

936
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:08,480
Yeah, absolutely.

937
00:52:08,890 --> 00:52:10,020
He said a lot about marriage.

938
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:11,580
And he inspired.

939
00:52:11,900 --> 00:52:12,460
That's the problem.

940
00:52:12,580 --> 00:52:14,700
People don't understand the inspired word of God.

941
00:52:15,020 --> 00:52:17,040
He inspired Romans 1.

942
00:52:17,090 --> 00:52:21,860
He inspired all these different scriptures and places that do speak against it.

943
00:52:21,860 --> 00:52:22,980
He wrote the Old Testament.

944
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:24,920
He did.

945
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:27,160
Yeah, these were the words of God.

946
00:52:28,220 --> 00:52:42,540
And I started to say, you know, that's one of the things I see a lot with modern Christians and in these public arguments, that compromise to fit in with the world.

947
00:52:43,380 --> 00:52:53,620
And the minute you see somebody say something that, let's be honest, these ultra conservative Christian views, because most conservative views are Christian.

948
00:52:53,900 --> 00:53:07,740
Right. I mean, let's acknowledge that the vast majority of conservative views, politically speaking, come from Christian teaching. Yeah. When we're talking about American conservatism specifically, it's not true when you go outside America.

949
00:53:08,220 --> 00:53:17,720
I know some people are going to be typing furiously somewhere when they see this and say, well, but when you go to over in Europe, conservative doesn't mean I get that.

950
00:53:17,870 --> 00:53:19,660
We're talking about America because that's where we live.

951
00:53:19,820 --> 00:53:21,380
It's not the rest of the world doesn't matter.

952
00:53:21,980 --> 00:53:23,240
We don't have experience there.

953
00:53:23,430 --> 00:53:25,060
We have the American conservative view.

954
00:53:26,060 --> 00:53:30,920
But the reason people get so fired up about that, they're wanting to fit in.

955
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:32,540
They're wanting to fit in.

956
00:53:32,620 --> 00:53:34,300
They don't want to cause trouble.

957
00:53:34,350 --> 00:53:35,620
They don't want to stir the boat.

958
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:36,680
They don't want to stir the pot.

959
00:53:36,740 --> 00:53:49,660
They don't want to take a chance that somebody will see them agreeing with you and then say, well, you know, we were going to hire you for this job, but we saw one time you agreed with this person on Facebook six months ago.

960
00:53:49,860 --> 00:53:53,780
And, you know, we just don't want anybody in our company having views like that.

961
00:53:54,060 --> 00:54:07,680
And people are worried about that. And here's the thing. If your employer is that concerned about you having these ultra conservative views that, by the way, were considered milquetoast normal views about 10 minutes ago.

962
00:54:09,260 --> 00:54:12,220
You probably don't want to go work for that company. You don't want to be there.

963
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:17,960
Like your life is going to be miserable the entire time you're there. So don't you know.

964
00:54:18,020 --> 00:54:22,980
So and that's what I see people do. And I really do realize that's what a lot of these people are so concerned about.

965
00:54:23,220 --> 00:54:24,660
And I'm like, ditch it.

966
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:26,340
It's not worth it.

967
00:54:26,720 --> 00:54:30,260
I know you may have to go flip burgers for a few months while you find a better place.

968
00:54:30,460 --> 00:54:34,760
But I promise there is somewhere out there that either holds the view of, hey, look, we don't care.

969
00:54:35,240 --> 00:54:36,540
Do what you do, what you're going to do.

970
00:54:36,580 --> 00:54:38,240
And we're just going to let you do it and leave you alone.

971
00:54:38,780 --> 00:54:40,620
Or they're going to say, no, we actually agree with you.

972
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:41,460
And come on in.

973
00:54:42,099 --> 00:54:43,080
We're right there with you.

974
00:54:43,500 --> 00:54:48,340
You will see one of those two things, because I promise the vast majority of companies just don't care.

975
00:54:48,900 --> 00:54:51,000
And the ones that do, you don't want to be a part of.

976
00:54:51,900 --> 00:54:56,500
I'll say this, and I know we don't have a lot of big view and audience,

977
00:54:57,510 --> 00:54:58,640
but I'm going to make it smaller.

978
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:05,820
I was listening to a podcast the other day,

979
00:55:06,180 --> 00:55:08,940
and a pretty respected pastor, preacher,

980
00:55:09,860 --> 00:55:13,620
and he said on his podcast, he said,

981
00:55:13,720 --> 00:55:18,040
if you want your church to thrive and you want your church to follow after God,

982
00:55:18,050 --> 00:55:19,040
he said, make it blue.

983
00:55:19,620 --> 00:55:20,700
And he was talking politically.

984
00:55:23,220 --> 00:55:27,320
I mean, but he was, you know, he was like, push it.

985
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:42,720
I mean, when you get right down to it, when you get right down to the bear tax of it, I mean, the Republican Party is a party that, and again, I know there's compromisers in there.

986
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:49,420
But overall, it is where the conservative view comes from, and it's where most Christians fall.

987
00:55:49,900 --> 00:55:56,740
Now, I don't know about the political, you know, that we need to get that political in our churches, you know, as far as those things go.

988
00:55:57,460 --> 00:56:03,600
But we need ultra conservative views inside our church.

989
00:56:03,860 --> 00:56:06,940
If you are saved, there are things that you need to stand on.

990
00:56:07,660 --> 00:56:13,600
The killing of babies, abortion, we have to be vehemently against.

991
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:15,880
And it's always wrong.

992
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:17,040
There's never right.

993
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:24,760
Homosexual marriage, marriage between two men, two women, the whole the transgender thing.

994
00:56:24,980 --> 00:56:29,760
Listen, guys, it's it's it's it's blasphemy against God.

995
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:31,420
It's it's biblically wrong.

996
00:56:31,980 --> 00:56:35,940
And we have to fall on that side of these issues and these things.

997
00:56:36,420 --> 00:56:41,700
And it's not that we can't love these people to Christ and share the truth of God with those people.

998
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:47,960
But but we but we can't just back up and say, you know what?

999
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:48,880
Maybe that's okay.

1000
00:56:48,980 --> 00:56:50,000
Or maybe this is okay.

1001
00:56:50,500 --> 00:56:53,420
No, if God's word says it's not okay, then it's not okay.

1002
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:53,760
Right.

1003
00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:54,580
Absolutely.

1004
00:56:55,100 --> 00:57:01,460
And that's, I think people forget that's where the term conservative comes from, is conserving

1005
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:04,480
and keeping these things which are true.

1006
00:57:04,820 --> 00:57:05,840
That is what it is.

1007
00:57:05,900 --> 00:57:11,600
Whereas progressivism, or we call it liberalism or leftism or whatever, is about freedom at

1008
00:57:11,700 --> 00:57:12,200
all costs.

1009
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:15,940
And the problem is freedom at all costs is basically anarchy.

1010
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:17,300
And we don't want that.

1011
00:57:18,500 --> 00:57:28,760
Even modern libertarians, which are very much anarchists at heart, acknowledge, hey, the government does have some purposes and we do have a reason to conserve some of these ideas.

1012
00:57:29,540 --> 00:57:33,920
And at the end of the day, what we strive for is the freedom for you to make that choice.

1013
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:40,880
And that's what the church stands for is we're not going to we don't force anything on you.

1014
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:47,760
We present the truth and you have the freedom to either accept or reject because we acknowledge that that's what God has created you to do.

1015
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:50,700
And we're not going to come after you if you reject it.

1016
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:54,380
We're going to come after you if you start taking that choice away from someone else.

1017
00:57:55,220 --> 00:57:57,520
And you know what the ultimate way of doing that is?

1018
00:57:57,750 --> 00:57:58,460
Remove their life.

1019
00:57:58,820 --> 00:58:00,040
Prevent them from being born.

1020
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:03,800
So we have to have those very firm stances.

1021
00:58:03,910 --> 00:58:06,840
And it really isn't about being combative or anything else.

1022
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:10,680
It's about we want as many people in heaven as we can get at the end of the day.

1023
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:13,400
God created this thing for us to have a choice, right?

1024
00:58:13,620 --> 00:58:13,900
Yes.

1025
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:15,820
I mean, just got to choose right.

1026
00:58:16,220 --> 00:58:16,600
Exactly.

1027
00:58:17,540 --> 00:58:20,180
I think there's going devil's advocate here.

1028
00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:21,240
Watch out.

1029
00:58:22,520 --> 00:58:29,400
I think there's a lot of Republicans that have confused people, and you just assume they're Christians.

1030
00:58:29,820 --> 00:58:30,400
Oh, yeah.

1031
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:31,300
Yes, I agree.

1032
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:36,780
And I think we've got to be careful of that because we can't legislate morality.

1033
00:58:37,180 --> 00:58:37,940
Yeah, that's right.

1034
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:44,340
You remember back in the 1920s or teens, alcohol was outlawed in the prohibition.

1035
00:58:44,859 --> 00:58:45,320
That worked.

1036
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:46,800
And all it did was drive it underground.

1037
00:58:47,260 --> 00:58:48,920
You can't legislate that stuff.

1038
00:58:49,340 --> 00:58:53,260
But what you have now is a lot of people on the left are trying to legislate it in a different way.

1039
00:58:53,560 --> 00:58:53,660
Yeah.

1040
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:57,840
They're trying to legislate free abortions, free this, free that, transgenderism.

1041
00:58:57,940 --> 00:58:59,480
They're trying to legislate all that stuff.

1042
00:58:59,540 --> 00:59:02,140
They're trying to legislate the lack of morality.

1043
00:59:02,420 --> 00:59:02,580
Yeah.

1044
00:59:03,130 --> 00:59:03,240
Right.

1045
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:03,840
That's right.

1046
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:07,520
But the only thing that's going to change anybody is a change of heart.

1047
00:59:07,740 --> 00:59:08,060
That's right.

1048
00:59:08,460 --> 00:59:09,320
You see your heart.

1049
00:59:09,550 --> 00:59:09,660
Amen.

1050
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:11,900
Laws don't change people.

1051
00:59:12,020 --> 00:59:12,200
No.

1052
00:59:12,540 --> 00:59:13,300
They punish people.

1053
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:14,860
No, blue or red doesn't change people.

1054
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:17,520
It is reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

1055
00:59:17,790 --> 00:59:17,920
Amen.

1056
00:59:18,220 --> 00:59:18,440
Yeah.

1057
00:59:18,700 --> 00:59:18,920
Amen.

1058
00:59:19,420 --> 00:59:19,600
Amen.

1059
00:59:19,780 --> 00:59:24,300
And we see a lot of compromise, and that's what he's talking about in this message to Pergamum.

1060
00:59:27,180 --> 00:59:32,720
Balaam, the example of Balaam, food sacrifice to idols, the Nicolaitans, it's all compromise with the world.

1061
00:59:32,900 --> 00:59:38,200
food sacrifice to idols what it looks like today is just compromise yeah you're just compromised

1062
00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:42,240
completely you're not living for jesus you're out in the world living for the world right that's

1063
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:46,680
right and that was that was pagan feasts yeah you know and who knows what kind of raunchy things

1064
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:51,380
were happening oh at least right yeah they had temple prostitutes and all that how many times

1065
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:52,900
have i used the word prostitute tonight

1066
00:59:56,980 --> 00:59:57,700
Way too many.

1067
01:00:03,780 --> 01:00:04,740
My bad.

1068
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:05,780
My bad.

1069
01:00:06,180 --> 01:00:08,940
But we have to be careful to examine ourselves, right?

1070
01:00:09,020 --> 01:00:11,460
We've got to test ourselves and live against the Word of God.

1071
01:00:11,600 --> 01:00:11,800
Amen.

1072
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,660
Not against the Republican or Democrat or this or that.

1073
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:16,780
It's the Word of God.

1074
01:00:16,900 --> 01:00:18,220
That's what it always comes back to.

1075
01:00:18,280 --> 01:00:20,300
That is our gold standard.

1076
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:21,000
The standard.

1077
01:00:21,340 --> 01:00:22,180
The standard.

1078
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:28,740
read verse 16 let's get i know we're right here at the end but let's get verse 16 verse 16 therefore

1079
01:00:29,060 --> 01:00:34,600
repent or else i'm coming to you quickly and i will make war against them with the sword of my

1080
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:41,260
mouth the sword of my mouth is just absolute judgment right that is the word of god it is

1081
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:48,580
it is amen amen repentance was the only way that they could be healed yeah it was the only way they

1082
01:00:48,480 --> 01:00:54,620
could be healed or he would come to them with his word all scripture is given by inspiration of god

1083
01:00:54,840 --> 01:01:00,300
and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction and for instruction in righteousness

1084
01:01:00,740 --> 01:01:07,160
second timothy chapter 3 and verse 16 amen this this this right here is our gold standard this

1085
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:14,460
right here is what we hold it all up to and listen don't count on your republican party to always be

1086
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:16,740
what it needs to be, or your Democratic Party

1087
01:01:16,810 --> 01:01:18,560
to always be what it needs to be,

1088
01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:20,440
but you can count on the Word of God

1089
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:22,300
and the strength of the Word of God

1090
01:01:22,500 --> 01:01:25,380
to always be never changing.

1091
01:01:25,620 --> 01:01:26,180
Amen.

1092
01:01:26,180 --> 01:01:27,180
Not one dot or one tell.

1093
01:01:27,220 --> 01:01:27,520
Amen.

1094
01:01:28,380 --> 01:01:28,820
Amen.

1095
01:01:30,700 --> 01:01:33,720
This Scripture, these words that God has given us,

1096
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:40,220
He refers to the Scripture as being as sharp as the truth of it,

1097
01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:42,840
and the Word of God as being as sharp as any two-edged sword.

1098
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:46,220
And that is the sword it's referring to, the sword of my mouth.

1099
01:01:46,440 --> 01:01:47,600
It's referring to the truth.

1100
01:01:48,300 --> 01:01:51,620
It's referring to the judgment that comes with truth.

1101
01:01:51,810 --> 01:01:54,720
Because unfortunately, truth does come with judgment.

1102
01:01:54,980 --> 01:01:56,960
I mean, the two go hand in hand.

1103
01:01:57,060 --> 01:01:57,300
Justice.

1104
01:01:58,160 --> 01:01:59,800
Yes, that's what justice is.

1105
01:01:59,960 --> 01:02:04,280
It is judging by truth, not by opinion.

1106
01:02:05,619 --> 01:02:10,400
And as Christians, we have to remember that our opinions have to remain rooted in this word.

1107
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:14,120
And right there in Revelation 2.16 is why.

1108
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:18,620
Because he's flat out warning us, look, you leave this aside long enough,

1109
01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:21,660
Christ says, I'm going to come back.

1110
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:23,280
I'm going to come after you.

1111
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:25,840
Not just meaning returning to take us home.

1112
01:02:26,020 --> 01:02:28,440
He's talking about this I'm going to fight against.

1113
01:02:29,820 --> 01:02:32,580
I don't know about you, but as a Christian, I don't want to be fighting against Jesus.

1114
01:02:32,980 --> 01:02:33,080
Amen.

1115
01:02:33,340 --> 01:02:36,040
And whose mouth is that sword coming out of?

1116
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:38,420
The way, the truth, and the life.

1117
01:02:38,540 --> 01:02:38,860
That's right.

1118
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:39,200
Jesus.

1119
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:39,340
That's right.

1120
01:02:39,420 --> 01:02:40,260
It's coming out of Jesus.

1121
01:02:40,540 --> 01:02:41,760
Because he is the word, right?

1122
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:42,340
Absolutely.

1123
01:02:42,940 --> 01:02:43,200
Amen.

1124
01:02:43,780 --> 01:02:44,860
And that's the thing.

1125
01:02:44,870 --> 01:02:47,940
I heard somebody say the other day that the truth came to us.

1126
01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:50,800
And not only did we reject him.

1127
01:02:50,860 --> 01:02:51,860
Everybody talks about that.

1128
01:02:52,020 --> 01:02:53,740
But the truth came to us and we killed him.

1129
01:02:54,780 --> 01:02:55,840
Yeah, we killed truth.

1130
01:02:56,500 --> 01:02:57,080
I mean, we tried.

1131
01:02:57,270 --> 01:02:57,900
We murdered Ruth.

1132
01:02:58,190 --> 01:02:58,680
Still trying.

1133
01:02:59,700 --> 01:03:00,960
Yeah, still doing our best.

1134
01:03:01,170 --> 01:03:02,240
Every single day.

1135
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:04,560
And sometimes we do it in the way we live.

1136
01:03:04,700 --> 01:03:06,320
Sometimes we do it in the things we say.

1137
01:03:07,860 --> 01:03:11,280
But we, on a daily basis, we try to kill truth.

1138
01:03:12,780 --> 01:03:13,180
Absolutely.

1139
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:15,240
We're just turning it upside down, right?

1140
01:03:15,400 --> 01:03:15,600
Right.

1141
01:03:15,860 --> 01:03:17,280
Hate is love and love is hate.

1142
01:03:17,820 --> 01:03:17,920
Yeah.

1143
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:18,420
Yeah.

1144
01:03:18,660 --> 01:03:21,420
AI is making stuff you don't know whether it's right or not.

1145
01:03:21,700 --> 01:03:22,200
Yeah, absolutely.

1146
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:22,840
Yeah.

1147
01:03:23,720 --> 01:03:24,600
Right is wrong.

1148
01:03:24,860 --> 01:03:25,440
Down is up.

1149
01:03:25,720 --> 01:03:25,820
Yeah.

1150
01:03:26,420 --> 01:03:27,860
I mean, and that's the thing.

1151
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:36,960
That is, again, that way we know we're getting close to the end is because the world loves the lie more than we love the truth.

1152
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:39,240
And we love evil over good.

1153
01:03:39,330 --> 01:03:41,040
And we search for the darkness.

1154
01:03:42,620 --> 01:03:45,560
And that's what we're looking at this stuff for.

1155
01:03:45,620 --> 01:03:46,920
We want to stand against that.

1156
01:03:47,640 --> 01:03:49,720
And as Christians, let's do that every day.

1157
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:55,860
Every day when we go out, remember, sometimes taking those stands, I hate to say it's going to cost.

1158
01:03:56,260 --> 01:03:58,300
There is a cost associated with it sometimes.

1159
01:03:58,820 --> 01:04:00,840
And that cost has gone up and up and up.

1160
01:04:01,020 --> 01:04:03,520
And sometimes that means you lose friends.

1161
01:04:04,520 --> 01:04:09,180
And sometimes that means you lose job opportunities and things like that.

1162
01:04:09,180 --> 01:04:10,180
Sometimes that means you lose life.

1163
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:15,680
And we are very fast approaching, even in this country, where it may mean you're losing your life.

1164
01:04:15,860 --> 01:04:16,200
That's right.

1165
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:18,260
And, you know, that's the thing.

1166
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:19,740
Take that stand.

1167
01:04:20,190 --> 01:04:27,600
It's still worth it because what we get on the other end is so much more and so much greater.

1168
01:04:27,820 --> 01:04:28,020
Amen.

1169
01:04:28,720 --> 01:04:34,740
Just by saying, no, I will not turn from the truth of who Christ is.

1170
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:38,000
And we need to take that.

1171
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:39,280
Take that with us every day.

1172
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:41,500
And let's go out and tell people.

1173
01:04:41,860 --> 01:04:42,720
Tell people about him.

1174
01:04:42,750 --> 01:04:44,020
Tell people how much he loves them.

1175
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:45,860
Tell people how much he's done for them.

1176
01:04:46,260 --> 01:04:48,980
That there is forgiveness and there is grace and there is mercy.

1177
01:04:49,110 --> 01:04:52,800
And there is the cleansing, the washing is clean.

1178
01:04:53,180 --> 01:04:56,020
And yes, the refining through fire.

1179
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:57,020
And it hurts.

1180
01:04:57,220 --> 01:04:58,120
It's a painful process.

1181
01:04:58,720 --> 01:05:01,500
But on the other end, what we have is so much greater.

1182
01:05:02,020 --> 01:05:05,260
And boy, that is an amazing message to give the world today.

1183
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:08,660
So let's go out and try to make heaven a little more crowded, everybody.

1184
01:05:09,380 --> 01:05:10,040
Let's do it.

1185
01:05:10,160 --> 01:05:11,440
We got verse 17, man.

1186
01:05:11,720 --> 01:05:12,160
Oh, yeah.

1187
01:05:12,740 --> 01:05:13,860
Yeah, we can hit that one real quick.

1188
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:16,220
Yeah, we'll be done with Pergamum.

1189
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:19,020
It says, he who has an ear.

1190
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:20,620
Again, it's personal.

1191
01:05:21,160 --> 01:05:23,300
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

1192
01:05:23,740 --> 01:05:26,920
To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna,

1193
01:05:27,500 --> 01:05:31,080
and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone,

1194
01:05:31,250 --> 01:05:33,500
which no one knows, but he who receives it.

1195
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:34,340
Yeah.

1196
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:35,000
That's awesome.

1197
01:05:35,160 --> 01:05:35,380
Yeah.

1198
01:05:35,760 --> 01:05:36,240
Amen.

1199
01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:37,340
Amen.

1200
01:05:37,520 --> 01:05:40,300
My name's all messed up and dirty and nasty.

1201
01:05:40,410 --> 01:05:40,520
Yeah.

1202
01:05:40,740 --> 01:05:41,680
You know, this world.

1203
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:43,960
That's awesome too.

1204
01:05:44,030 --> 01:05:48,000
I mean, that's a, and that's a great, uh, it is a good place to end tonight,

1205
01:05:48,430 --> 01:05:50,160
but how do we overcome?

1206
01:05:50,620 --> 01:05:53,060
We overcome by the blood of the lamb and his testimony.

1207
01:05:53,290 --> 01:05:53,440
Right.

1208
01:05:54,300 --> 01:05:56,460
Uh, and he is that man of Jesus.

1209
01:05:57,660 --> 01:06:00,520
in John chapter 6 verse 32 through 35

1210
01:06:01,460 --> 01:06:02,280
Jesus said unto them

1211
01:06:02,580 --> 01:06:03,740
verily verily I say unto you

1212
01:06:03,930 --> 01:06:05,620
Moses gave you not the bread from heaven

1213
01:06:06,060 --> 01:06:08,800
but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven

1214
01:06:08,920 --> 01:06:10,340
for the bread of God is he

1215
01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:11,940
which cometh down from heaven

1216
01:06:11,970 --> 01:06:13,380
and giveth life unto the world

1217
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:15,340
then said they unto him

1218
01:06:15,620 --> 01:06:17,300
Lord evermore give us this bread

1219
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:19,120
and Jesus said unto them

1220
01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:20,940
I am the bread of life

1221
01:06:21,220 --> 01:06:23,260
he that cometh to me shall never hunger

1222
01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:25,780
and he that believeth on me

1223
01:06:25,800 --> 01:06:32,480
shall never thirst and uh you know that just oh it just continues to ring true in our ears but

1224
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:41,800
listen listen at this so so people in asia minor would would hand out a uh to syrah or a cube

1225
01:06:42,580 --> 01:06:49,620
and this cube they would hand it out to people who were close friends to them uh and and the cube

1226
01:06:49,680 --> 01:06:53,900
that they would give to them had words and symbols engraved on them.

1227
01:06:54,720 --> 01:06:59,280
And get this, these were private to the people who would give them

1228
01:06:59,700 --> 01:07:01,240
or who they would receive to.

1229
01:07:02,200 --> 01:07:07,000
So they would give out these tesseras, these cubes,

1230
01:07:07,480 --> 01:07:10,120
and the words that were on them were private to the people

1231
01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:11,240
that they were giving them to.

1232
01:07:14,220 --> 01:07:15,780
So here's my question.

1233
01:07:16,100 --> 01:07:16,760
Here's my question.

1234
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:18,760
The name, a new name.

1235
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:22,260
will it be a name for us or will it be a name for him?

1236
01:07:23,620 --> 01:07:29,960
Could it be that he gives us a new name to call him, right?

1237
01:07:30,120 --> 01:07:36,140
A personal name like daddy or like father or like, you know,

1238
01:07:37,080 --> 01:07:40,180
or is it his personal name for us, right?

1239
01:07:41,380 --> 01:07:42,080
But anyway.

1240
01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:48,220
We do know he's got a name written on his thigh that no one knows but him.

1241
01:07:48,300 --> 01:07:48,840
That's right.

1242
01:07:49,140 --> 01:07:49,500
That's right.

1243
01:07:49,700 --> 01:07:50,440
Yeah, absolutely.

1244
01:07:51,100 --> 01:07:51,420
Absolutely.

1245
01:07:52,260 --> 01:07:53,280
Yeah, yeah, it is.

1246
01:07:53,660 --> 01:07:54,300
Yeah, you're right.

1247
01:07:54,560 --> 01:07:54,920
You're right.

1248
01:07:55,220 --> 01:07:55,320
Absolutely.

1249
01:07:56,260 --> 01:07:57,220
That's awesome stuff, man.

1250
01:07:57,320 --> 01:08:00,780
He always ends these letters with this just huge encouragement, right?

1251
01:08:00,900 --> 01:08:01,800
This promise.

1252
01:08:02,180 --> 01:08:03,520
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

1253
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:04,360
Love it.

1254
01:08:04,540 --> 01:08:04,900
Absolutely.

1255
01:08:05,700 --> 01:08:06,020
Love it.

1256
01:08:07,420 --> 01:08:09,220
I think that wraps us up for tonight.

1257
01:08:10,940 --> 01:08:15,300
Next week, we'll kick off with the church in Thyatira.

1258
01:08:15,880 --> 01:08:16,640
Thyatira, yep.

1259
01:08:17,960 --> 01:08:18,759
Yeah, Thyatira.

1260
01:08:19,220 --> 01:08:19,640
The Torah.

1261
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:20,259
Yeah.

1262
01:08:20,460 --> 01:08:24,440
So we'll be kicking off with them next week, and you'll get to hear us say that name at least once.

1263
01:08:25,340 --> 01:08:26,880
I was not saying prostitute again.

1264
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:30,500
You can't make that promise.

1265
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:31,920
Maybe not next week, but it's coming.

1266
01:08:33,779 --> 01:08:34,060
Right.

1267
01:08:34,210 --> 01:08:34,680
Yeah, yeah.

1268
01:08:34,790 --> 01:08:35,940
I forgot which church this is.

1269
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:36,200
Yeah.

1270
01:08:36,330 --> 01:08:36,460
Yeah.

1271
01:08:36,560 --> 01:08:37,100
Pretty bad.

1272
01:08:37,279 --> 01:08:37,480
Yeah.

1273
01:08:37,740 --> 01:08:38,299
It gets worse.

1274
01:08:38,580 --> 01:08:39,500
Yeah, it does get worse.

1275
01:08:41,060 --> 01:08:41,940
It does get worse.

1276
01:08:43,020 --> 01:08:43,839
Oh, man.

1277
01:08:43,940 --> 01:08:49,380
Well, join us next week, and we'll pick back up starting in Revelation 2.18,

1278
01:08:49,940 --> 01:08:54,420
and we'll continue on studying this verse by verse, a little bit at a time, breaking it down.

1279
01:08:55,000 --> 01:08:56,960
And I know we are very excited.

1280
01:08:57,080 --> 01:09:01,580
I know I'm enjoying this because, man, I love digging into this stuff and studying.

1281
01:09:01,799 --> 01:09:01,980
Amen.

1282
01:09:02,839 --> 01:09:05,040
Brother Brian, will you say a prayer tonight?

1283
01:09:05,440 --> 01:09:05,700
Sure.

1284
01:09:06,210 --> 01:09:06,319
Sure.

1285
01:09:06,940 --> 01:09:07,759
Lord, we love you.

1286
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:20,160
And God, we're so thankful for the opportunity to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, to to dig into your word and God to just to help to explain it through the Holy Spirit of God.

1287
01:09:21,060 --> 01:09:27,520
Lord, I thank you for wisdom and knowledge, Lord God, that that doesn't come from man, that comes from you and your word.

1288
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:31,660
And we trust in that, not in the wisdom of man, but in the wisdom of God.

1289
01:09:32,180 --> 01:09:37,500
Lord, I pray that Lord, that those who hear today, those who have an ear, let them hear.

1290
01:09:38,140 --> 01:09:44,279
the Word of God as it is taught, as it is preached, as they read it, as they study it.

1291
01:09:44,819 --> 01:09:49,480
God, I pray that they would take what we said tonight and they would open up the Word of

1292
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:54,480
God themselves and they would study into it and they would prove what has been said through

1293
01:09:54,510 --> 01:09:55,320
the Word of God.

1294
01:09:56,260 --> 01:10:01,220
And Lord, I pray that many people would be touched and many people would be saved and

1295
01:10:01,300 --> 01:10:05,820
many people would come to know Jesus through this ministry that you've given us here.

1296
01:10:06,380 --> 01:10:10,020
Lord, we thank you for these men who are here with me tonight.

1297
01:10:10,740 --> 01:10:16,820
God, who give up their time from their families to come and to spread the word of God.

1298
01:10:16,850 --> 01:10:21,240
I pray that you would bless that, bless them for that, bless their families for that.

1299
01:10:21,720 --> 01:10:24,660
And Lord, we thank you for these things, and we ask them in Jesus' name.

1300
01:10:25,050 --> 01:10:25,180
Amen.

1301
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:31,000
Special thank you to Carter Pridmore

1302
01:10:31,240 --> 01:10:32,060
Brian Harris

1303
01:10:32,660 --> 01:10:33,240
Waverly Henderson

1304
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:35,040
Tatum Harris Spears

1305
01:10:35,430 --> 01:10:36,560
and Josie Partain

1306
01:10:36,650 --> 01:10:37,520
for our theme song

1307
01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:38,680
Truth Set Me Free

1308
01:10:38,940 --> 01:10:40,440
I've been Tyler Goza

1309
01:10:40,440 --> 01:10:41,460
on production and audio

1310
01:10:41,720 --> 01:10:43,220
We hope you can join us

1311
01:10:43,390 --> 01:10:44,420
live next Monday

1312
01:10:44,470 --> 01:10:45,500
at 6pm Central

1313
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:46,960
Thank you for listening