Midweek Bible Study | Revelation 2:12-17 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] we're in Chapter two if you have your Bibles they're in a Revelation chapter two let's first pray and then I'm gonna do basically a a quick review I had to even go back on the teaching library and look and see what was the last thing I taught so that I can be up to speed with where we are and we left off in the middle of chapter 2 but I'm gonna actually do just kind of a brief synopsis of chapter 2 heading back into this section of Scripture together let's first pause and pray Lord it's good to be in your house even though we're still trying to live through these limitations these restrictions we come before you tonight just thankful we can be back in your house thankful Lord for technology too so people can be watching tonight online and as we open up your word and as we look into the book of Revelation we thank you that even though there is heavy Lord you've told us these things that are to come your heart is grieved for a world that has rejected you and yet this is also a book to remind us of our everlasting hope that we have in Jesus Christ and that Lord you want none to perish you tell us but all to come to repentance you have prepared a place for us that as many as would believe in you to them that received you you gave the right to become children of God so Lord as we go through this book together over the next year or so we we pray that our hearts would not be heavy but our hearts Lord would be looking forward to what you're about to do on our behalf for eternity sake and that as many people as possible our loved ones who don't know you would get saved that our co-workers who don't know you would get saved that you give us a burden for the people around us who don't know you so that they might share in the same hope that we have of your blessed return and of a new heaven and a new earth so thank you Lord for meeting us here tonight in this midweek service we pray now you be glorified guide us through this chapter this evening we love you and we praise you together in Jesus name and everybody said amen alright y'all ready alright I'm gonna review a little bit bring everybody back up to speed since we had this three-month break and for those of you who are new to our study of Revelation I'm gonna use the back wall and once again remind us of this timeline that the book of Revelation gives us starting with Jesus's resurrection from the dead forty days afterwards he ascends back into heaven and then the church age begins the next thing that we are looking forward to is the rapture of the church when Jesus will come only in the clouds to receive believers to take us from the earth to snatch us away there will be a generation that does not experience a natural death but instead gets a glorified body on the way up we get translated from earth to heaven that's the rapture of the church and then it's followed by seven years of tribulation on the earth things that are going to be happening that's given to us between revelation 6 and 18 cataclysmic disastrous events that are going to unfold that the Bible predicts and prophesize so that we can know the things that are to come and then following that Jesus will come again to the earth not just in the clouds but he will come again to the earth the Saints who have been with him kept safely in heaven will return with him that ushers in the millennial reign or the thousand-year reign of Christ that's Revelation chapter 20 followed by a judgement time the lake of fire great white throne judgment and new heaven and a new earth this present earth and the present heavens will be destroyed the Bible says and replaced by a new heaven and a new earth now that's the quick summary of the whole book of Revelation but for now we don't need to be concerned with all of this we're just going to be looking presently at the church age that's the present time in which we are living and that's revelation one two and three we're living in the church age ever since Jesus ascended back into heaven and he basically if you will hands us the baton of ministry and says now be my representatives be my ambassador in the world and and you know share the gospel in the good news leading people to Christ baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit so we were to make this titles of Christ and and as many people as possible to get saved because Jesus is coming again so we're living now in this church age period and in the book of Revelation as Jesus then begins to dictate you'll notice in chapters 2 & 3 much of those chapters are in red if you have a red letter edition of the Bible because Jesus is dictating specific letters to specific churches there are seven letters to seven churches and that's what we're going to be looking at today and that's a reminder from where we left off a couple months ago there are three things that I want us to keep in mind about these seven letters to the seven churches the first is this that these churches were literal in existence that each church was an actual Church located in Turkey during the 1st century AD so as these letters are getting dictated to these pastors of these churches to be read to these churches these are literal churches this is not symbolic this these are literal churches that existed in the 1st century and we're talking again modern-day Turkey or ancient Asia Minor so we're talking about this this region just south of the Black Sea underneath the Black Sea Asia Minor right along the Aegean Sea we're talking about this block this territory and here are the seven churches that are mentioned in the book of Revelation starting with the Church of Ephesus and what you'll notice as we go through chapter 2 and 3 is that in a clockwise direction Jesus dictates these seven letters to these seven churches one letter to each church starting with Ephesus and then in your Bibles it goes clockwise Smyrna Pergamum Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea and so as he dictates these seven letters to these seven churches again these are literal churches that existed in the first century but in addition to these being literal churches literal in existence they are also to be read these letters as spiritual in relevance because each church addresses spiritual issues relevant to believers today so when Jesus is dictating these different letters you're gonna notice that he includes a commendation he's gonna commend them for things and he and he's going to complain about some things that they're not doing right and by the way it's always in that order he commends them before he complains that's always a good thing for us to remember if you're about to make it withdrawal make a deposit first right if you have something to say about somebody that you know you're gonna complain at least and not just a butter him up or manipulate him but at least encourage him with something good before you have to say but here's something I'm concerned about this is the way that Jesus does it so in these seven letters he has a commendation first and then he has a complaint about something now out of the seven churches - he has nothing bad to say they're in in two of these letters - two of these churches - the Church of Smyrna the suffering Church and of the church in Philadelphia the evangelistic church he doesn't have a single bad thing to say but this is this is how he is going to begin to command and complain and then he ends with a reward to those who are faithful so it's not just a list of here my grievances that God gives to these churches he says I want to commend you for some things but I got to challenge you about some things and anybody who turns from the things that I'm challenging you about will ultimately in relationship with me experience rewards so that's the format of these different letters and it should be read that way in other words Jesus still has something to say to us this is the reason why each of the seven letters ends with the phrase he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches because it is relevant for us today as well we can learn some things from these literal letters written to literal churches they have spiritual relevance for us and then thirdly the important thing to remember is that there's an historical significance each church represents a distinct time period of church history now you read different Bible commentaries and different Bible commentaries we'll talk about exactly what those time periods are I've I've put together I think you know just an ache domination of different perspectives and views a timeline of church history that I think best fits for our study but you can read different commentaries you'll get a few different dates you'll get a few different labels but basically what we're talking about is a period of church history starting with 33 ad which is when Jesus ascended back into heaven and then the the new testament church is launched and so what you're going to notice is that each of these churches being literal and having spiritual relevance also paint a picture of church history for us and some of it you'll notice towards the end of the timeline is still ongoing we're living in it so in some sense it's it's also a little prophetic too but basically these are different events that happened in church history that separates each of these times so again for example the first letter is the Church of Ephesus and the Church of Ephesus symbolizes roughly 33 to 100 AD again these were and these were different events that began and ended those time periods so 33 AD was Pentecost the new testament church's birth Jesus has ascended back into heaven until about 100 ad which is when the last of the Twelve Apostles died and it ended the Apostolic age that was one part of church history that's done the Apostolic age and then after Ephesus was Smyrna 100 312 ad and again 100 the end of the Apostolic age until 312 ad a significant event in 312 ad was Constantine Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the state religion we're go talk about that a little bit because that leads into tonight because that leads into Pergamos Pergamos is the next thing on the church history timeline showing at 312 ad Constantine issues and an order that Christianity is a state religion you are you have elevated status as a Christian you have protected status as a Christian during this particular time of the Roman Empire and that will morph into the Roman Catholic Church that begins roughly 606 AD we're going to talk about this tonight and we might if we still have time and I'd also talk about Thyatira because the Roman Catholic Church begins around 606 a d it is morphed from the state church and then the other significant event that happens in church history 1517 AD it is the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther objects as a Catholic monk to some of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and and so he nails his theses to the church in Wittenberg in Germany objecting to some of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and thus the Protestant Reformation begins and so the Protestant church now breaks off of the Roman Catholic Church 1517 ad and then we get to Sardis which represents the next major vent in church history which is 1517 217 roughly 1750 ad the Great Awakening great revival sweeps through America John Wesley George Whitfield Calvin just you know all of these great men of God that you know the Holy Spirit just begins to sweep across the country greater Great Awakening 1730's 1740s so roughly 1750 begins a new chapter in the life of the church as a result of the Great Awakening it's a wonderful historical event you can read up on it we'll talk about it more when we get to Sardis followed by Philadelphia so the the church in Philadelphia starts from the Great Awakening and is current because the Church of Philadelphia represents the evangelical Christian Church this is one of the churches about which Jesus has nothing bad to say in in the book of Revelation so the Church of Philadelphia is the church that we would say right now we belong to as evangelical Christians a part of you know the result of the Great Awakening the mainstream of Christian evangelicalism that will be raptured that will be taken when Christ sounds the trumpet and from the clouds and we go to be with him but unfortunately in around 1900 this represents the last church the Church of Laodicea there was a split with the evangelical church into modern liberalism and terrible liberal theology crept into the church around the turn of the 20th century and is still here and growing and that branch of Christianity if I can use that term loosely has taken on a life of its own full of liberal theology that denies a lot of what scripture has to say that branch will not be raptured that branch will go into the tribulation because it is founded on a doctrine that is not the doctrine of Jesus Christ it has become a corrupt doctrine of liberalism and it is in the American church today be aware of it so this is what the book of Revelation when we go through these seven letters were actually looking at different time periods that end up culminating in the return of Christ and then ultimately the tribulation so we've already talked about Ephesus and Smyrna the last time we were together I'm not going to rehash all of that but we left off in the middle of chapter 2 here where it speaks about the Church of Pergamos in verse 12 so if you have your Bibles open now if you'll take a look here in verse 12 I'll read from verse 12 down to verse 17 and we kind of got halfway through this three months ago so some of this will be a little repetitive but I felt like I needed to back up and get a running start so we can all be reminded where we are here so a revelation 2 starting at verse 12 let me read down through verse 17 and the angel of the church in Pergamos write these things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword I know your works and where you dwell where Satan's throne is and you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr who was killed among you where Satan dwells but I have a few things against you because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate repent where else I will come to you quickly and we'll fight against them with the sword of my mouth he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat and I will give him a white stone and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it all right so we come here now to the letter of the Church of Pergamos we have moved about fifty miles north of Smyrna on the map Pergamus is located about 20 miles inland from the Aegean Sea on the bank of the caucus river today tis the modern city of Bergama Bergama was built among the ruins of Pergamos and it has a population today of roughly 14,000 people Pergamus was a wealthy city during this time that we're reading about and its wealth came largely from an industry of paper there was a time when the king of Egypt forbade the export of papyrus which at the time was the only known material on which you can write until a guy in Pergamus by the name of human ease ii discovered that you could take the pulp of wood and manufacture paper from it and so paper was first manufactured here in Pergamus and as a result it led to a very wealthy industry that made this city very wealthy and and so much of the city's wealth is attributed to the invention of paper as a result people the Pergamus became pretty self-centered from their accumulated wealth they were also obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom through reading nothing wrong with reading nothing wrong with knowledge and education except when it becomes so obsessive as an end to itself pergamus boasted of a library at one time that had two hundred thousand books it was later all those books were later sent to Egypt as a gift from Mark Antony to Cleopatra cleaned all the library out of pergamus and sent it as a gift to Cleopatra she figured she didn't have anything to read the spiritual climate of the city of pergamus was polytheistic again this is the the tail end of the Roman Empire there was a large 40-foot statue of the Greek god Zeus situated on top of an 800 foot high hill in the midst of the city it was unearthed by a German engineer by the name of Karl human in 1878 and that statue of Zeus is displayed today in East Berlin the worship in that city at that time being polytheistic included gods and goddesses like Zeus Athena Dionysus and a scallop is a skill a pious was the god of the pagan god of medicine and healing remember the idol of ascalaphus was a serpent on a staff it is still often used as a symbol in the medical community today but that serpent on a staff might be one of the reasons why Jesus addresses this city as a place where Satan dwells kind of the image of the serpent on a staff and the the the Church of Pergamus represents on the timeline of church history the state church again these two major bookend events in 312 ad Constantine made Christianity a state religion and and he permeated it with pagan customs and practices so it ended up looking more Roman than it did Christian and then this time period ends around 606 BC with the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church now as I mentioned three months ago when we were last together it sounds on the surface like a wonderful thing for Christianity to have elevated status and protected status as the state religion Constantine writes that he had this personal epiphany where he saw a cross on fire as he was marching out to war and he heard the words in this sign conquer and so he started to advance Christianity in a way that you don't really want to do you never want to advance Christianity or any religion Frank by the sword and this is the kind of thing that he did and then he required everybody in the Roman Empire you got to be a Christian I saw this vision so he says and I'm a Christian now and so you have to be a Christian if I'm a Christian and so everybody had to become a Christian now what kind of genuine Christian would that make because it's quite the opposite of the way it used to be if you were a Christian prior to Constantine becoming Emperor you were persecuted now you got favored and protected status so in the one sense okay you're not going to die for your faith but on the other hand there's gonna be people converting to Christianity because it's the mandated state religion so it's not it's not based on a heart relationship with Jesus it just becomes this mandated ritualistic religious experience that's what's happening in this time period of the church and so Jesus comes along oh speaking of historically Jesus comes along and he has some things to say to this church and so as we've already read it here's basically the summary of what we just read there the title of Jesus in this letter is him who has the sharp two-edged sword so you can you can tell that you know he begins here by making this reference to the fact that he's coming in judgment I mean you know that's it's not it's not a friendly Jesus when he's coming with a two-edged sword that that's just not an image of you know gentle Jesus that is an image of Jesus who's coming as righteous judge and he commends them he begins with a commendation here he commends that they have he says you have not he says I give this to you you've not renounced your faith even though your friend Antipas was martyred for his faith now there were pockets of persecution overall it was a protected status but what I find marvelous about what Jesus is saying here is the fact that he calls out a guy by name Antipas and there's no other reference anywhere else in the Bible to this guy Jesus calls out this guy by name as a model of someone who did not renounce his faith in the face of death Antipas and then he commends the rest of the church because he says if there was a time that you would have hightailed it out and denied the faith because when your friends was killed for his faith you didn't do that so I commend you for that but I marvel at the fact that this guy by name is mentioned by Jesus just that's just so intriguing to me because it's a reminder that he sees you by name and he sees when you stand for him when you don't deny him when you take whatever heat for your faith he sees that he takes note of it and he even commends this one guy by name and then the whole church because they didn't run when this guy was martyred for his faith but he has a complaint and the complaint is basically a marriage of the church and the world now again as I mentioned a few months ago when we were in this last Pergamus is from the root word gamos gamos is a greek word that is the root word for marriage we talk about being faithful of one person that's monogamy monogamous if you have multiple you know if you're married to multiple people that's polygamy polygamous so the root of this is marriage gamos it's an actual city but you know Jesus is using it as a way of illustrating by virtue of the name of the city the problem in the church which is that the church has married itself to the culture and instead of staying distinct from the culture to be a distinct witness to the culture it has married the church as has married itself with the culture this is a problem and it exists today where searches sadly have married themselves to the world they've adopted the worldly customs they've adopted a cultural viewpoint on social issues and they've just basically become very identical to the world well the world thinks this way so the church is going to think this way the world acts this way so the church is gonna and and I don't know under under what you know banner the the idea of evolved that the church needs to look like the world perhaps because somebody erroneously thought that if the church can somehow look a little bit more like the world it can win the world that is a fallacy that'll never work if you just end up looking like the very people you're supposed to hopefully rescue with the hope that you have and you look just like them what what impetus do they have to want what you have because you look just like they do and so the church has to be distinct the church has to be distinct in order to be able to hold out the gospel of Jesus Christ as something unique and something desirable and something attainable to all who would believe in receive but if we end up just getting absorbed in the culture looking too much like the culture accepting the social mores of the culture then we're not really advancing the gospel we've just become absorbed with the culture and we've become married to the world and so this is the rebuke here Jesus saying yeah there's this marriage here and he and he calls out these two particular doctrines he mentions there in verse 14 the doctrine of balaam and in verse 15 the doctrine of the Nicolaitans you see that there in your Bible so he so Jesus has an issue with some things here that is going about are going on in the church here and the first thing is this this idea of the the doctrine of the Nicolaitans of Balaam and and the word doctrine here's died a key in the in Greek which which means correct teaching so they have embraced what should be a correct teaching they've embraced a false teaching a dyed a key a doctrine of balaam what exactly is the doctrine of Balaam in the margin of your Bible you can just write down numbers chapter 22 numbers chapter 22 gives us the story of Balaam he's a peculiar person he is an occultist but he's also seen in Scripture as quote a prophet and and he is a very unusual guy because there's some places you can read in the story in numbers 22 where it seems like he's a who's trying to honor God and then there's other parts where you look at it you as well clearly clearly this guy is in a cultist and eat and he doesn't even really hold to the true faith of the God of the Bible so he's a very odd person that Balak the king of the Moabites hires in order to try to curse God's people so here's what's going on that mullah bites the perennial enemies of the Israelites Balak is the king of the Moabites and he hears about this prophet by the name of Balaam and he hires Balaam to come and to curse God's people the Israelites because Balak as king of the Moabites realizes I can't defeat the Israelites because they've got God on their side but unless but maybe I can curse the Israelites and then I can defeat them so he hires this guy named Balaam and Balaam comes it's a long story I'm going to reduce to just a couple of minutes Balaam comes and Balak hires him curse the Israelites and so Balaam gets up at a place where you can see the Israelite army in a valley and Balaam begins to utter curses over them but whatever he does and he opens his mouth God puts words of blessing in his mouth to bless the people of God so every time he's just like all right all right you little all of a sudden comes out these wonderful things of praise and glory to God over the Israelites now can you imagine if that were to happen to you when you're in traffic and somebody cuts you off and you joined you roll down the window you're sick you little hey jesus loves you god bless you i love you too what that's the kind of thing that's happening here Balaam opens his mouth to start cursing them and instead God floods his tongue with words of blessing so he's ends up blessing and Balak the king who hired him is just like I didn't give you money to do that I gave you money to curse these people why you blessing them he's like I can't help it God is putting these blessing words on my mouth and so after several attempts at this Balaam realized I'm not going to be able to curse God's people because every time I open my mouth God gives me a word of blessing so he says this to Balak here's what you need to do it's not going to work for me to continue to open up my mouth what you need to do is you to take your own Moabite women who are there their pagan women they worship idols they have no sense of moral standards or what is right before God Balaam says I want you to take your Moabite women and let them go into the camp of the Israelite army and seduce the men into sexual immorality and when you seduce them with sexual immorality you will defeat them from within that's a bale it does and it works the doctrine of Balaam is basically the doctrine of immorality seduction and greed for a profit Balaam encouraged King Balak to introduce sexual immorality into the ranks of the Israeli army and you will defeat them from within and so therefore the doctrine of Balaam represents moral compromise idolatry and greed the doctrine of the Nicolaitans is the other thing that he mentions in verse 15 that Jesus has an issue with the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was something actually mentioned back in the letter to the church at Ephesus they were commended for not tolerating the doctrine of the Nicolaitans but now here at the Church of Pergamos they're being rebuked they're guilty for accepting the doctrine of the Nicolaitans what exactly is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans well there's a split view on this nobody knows for sure some believe that it is a doctrine that came as the result of Nicholas who was one of the original deacons mentioned in Acts chapter 6 verse 5 and church tradition says we don't this we don't know this biblically for a fact but church tradition says that Nicholas perverted the doctrine of grace saying that people could do whatever they wanted as long as they prayed and as long as they sought God God would give them grace and so there was the thought that the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was the followers of Nicholas who taught that kind of a compromised way of living but probably the more likely understanding the doctrine of the Nicolaitans comes from the Greek understanding of the word Nicolaitans and this plays right into what's happening in the timeline of church history as the Roman Catholic Church begins to emerge from this particular state mandated religion and here's what it is Nicolaitans is from two Greek words in the ko which is the verb that means to conquer nação the noun form is Nikkei we say Nike which means victory or conquer nação meaning to conquer and layoffs meaning the laity nação Laius to conquer the laity the idea of the doctrine of the Nicolaitans is when church leadership began to lord authority over the church members otherwise known as the laity so that the clergy held power and dominance over the laity and Jesus would rebuke this for two reasons number one he he never modeled that kind of leadership Jesus's leadership was servant leadership he was always opposed to a dominant kind of heavy-handed supreme kind of you know lording over authority so he number one he he certainly didn't model that he modeled servant leadership and number two he taught against it in Matthew chapter 20 verses 25 to 28 it says Jesus called them to himself and said you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and those who are great exercise authority over them yet it shall not be so among you but whoever desires to become great among you let him be your servant and whoever desires to be first among you let him be your slave just as the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many a problem one of the problems that happened when the state-run church kind of morphed into historically the Roman Catholic Church there became a great divide between clergy and laity and clergy the papal Authority be came something in the Roman Catholic Church that still to the state by the way and talking through this I'm not trying to step on anybody's toes but let's listen this might be some of your tradition this might be some of your background those of you watching online you're like alright is he gonna shred the Roman Catholic Church I'm not I'm not gonna shred anybody I'm just gonna give you factual historical commentary and the fact of the matter is that the papal authorities set itself up equal to Scripture and that is usurping the authority of God and that is positioning the Pope and that is positioning church leadership above lording it over the laity and this is a problem this is a problem in the Roman Catholic Church where there is this separation you as the people only get to God through me as the priest that's the idea behind Roman Catholicism that you you don't get to go to God directly I stand in the place of Christ a priest would say is the Vicar of Christ the representative Christ that's why I get to absolve you of your sins that's why you have to confess your sins to me I stand in that place as the intermediary between you and God it is just frankly unbiblical because the Bible says there's one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus and whenever man puts himself between fellow man and God you have just now usurped the only place that Jesus is supposed to have and so this lording authority this this this this you know kind of the structural religious ritual system is the very thing that he's speaking against here when it comes to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans now he does end up rewarding he mentions your rewards if you notice at the end of the of the letter here he says to the overcomers at pergamus he promises two things he promises some of the hidden manna and he promises a white stone with a new name written on it that only jesus knows so first he mentions here hidden manna and what exactly is a reference here to the hidden manna well this represents Jesus himself in John's Gospel chapter 6 remember on our IM series on Sunday mornings one of the I am statements Jesus made was I am the bread and in John chapter six when he makes that commentary he is speaking in the context of how the Jewish people who rejected him talked about how they had the bread from heaven that their forefathers gave them referring to manna and Jesus says I I am the bread of life that has come down from heaven I mean what your forefathers ate in the desert sustained them it was given to them by the hand of God but they all still perished however if you feed on me in other words if you have relationship with me then you'll never perish in the sense that you have everlasting life your body may die but your spirit lives forever so the hidden manna is really a representative of Jesus himself and he's basically saying the prize for overcoming is me that's what he's saying that you can have eternal relationship with me and then secondly he mentions here to the overcomers that they will receive a white stone he says with a new name written on it now in the in the tradition of the priestly garments back in this time the priest the high priest would wear a vestments and in the vestment there were two particular stones called the Ihram and the Tumen and and before the giving of the holy spirit the way that the high priest would discern the will of god in the old testament was to reach into his vestments so let's say they were faced with this question and he was trying to discern yes Lord or no should we do this should we not the high priest would put his hand into his vestment and take out one of the two stones now tradition says that the Ihram was a white stone the Tumen was a black stone and if he pulled out the white stone the error meant yes or acceptable the tumor meant no or not acceptable and that's the way they would often make decisions okay now we have the Holy Spirit so don't go flipping a coin all right I mean if you you know I hear people from time to time say well I'm just gonna kind of roll the dice on that I'm gonna flip a coin I'm just gonna I had a lady one time say to me you know we made a decision to come to Cornerstone because we as a family flipped a coin I said really I mean she was being she was being completely honest with me nobody here I'm not trying to offend him this is like 20 years ago that's how they decide okay I said you know I hope that I hope the Lord guides you better than just the flipping of a coin we actually have the Holy Spirit now but anyway back in the day that's how they would make decisions and God would use it to help instruct them so one of the concepts behind the idea of a white stone with a new name on it is the idea that you were accepted God is saying yes to you you were accepted in the beloved and in fact in Ephesians 1 6 Paul would write to the praise of the glory of His grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved and then it adds it on that white stone there will be a new name just for you now this is fascinating because again these are spiritual principles for all of us not just unique to the Church of Pergamus what God is telling us is that there will come a day when every single one of us who know Christ as Savior will be issued a new name and that name presently is only known by Jesus now you may like the name that your parents gave you or you may not like it okay but the fact is whether you like it or don't your natural given name you're going to be renamed by Jesus and it really is a statement of his affection because you know how it is that when you are really fond of someone or you really love someone you often give them a nickname don't you you know poohbear you know right all that kind of stuff hey Pooh Bear you know whatever so when you have a nickname for someone it's often a sign of affection that's the concept here that Jesus wants us to know just how much he loves us by giving us a new name that is unique to the way that he sees us I don't have you ever stopped to wonder like what will that name be you know how there were different times in the Bible that God changed people's names remember Jacob Yaakov meaning deceiver and God wrestled with him literally and changed his name to Israel meaning governed by God he gave him a new identity and a new name and so the Bible says this one day we will be given a white stone with a new name presently known only by Jesus just to be able to identify his affection for you and for me so already our time has escaped us and that's all we got through but we're gonna be looking at the Church of Thyatira next Wednesday Lord willing and so read ahead the rest of chapter 2 and we'll close it out together next week by looking at the Church of Thyatira which really has to do with the Roman Catholic Church so again I'm not I'm not trying to disparage but I'm just gonna be stating some factual things and talking about the Protestant Reformation from that as well so read the rest in chapter 2 and we'll pick it up there next Wednesday night let's first pray father thank you as we close our Bibles tonight for your word we pray you would continue to encourage us and challenge us as we go through the book of Revelation together use this to speak to our hearts now as we go home keep us safe in the rain and Lord continue to help prevent us from any illnesses Lord just we pray that you would just eradicate this virus we look forward to be able to return to whatever is normal as soon as we can so Lord heal those who are sick keep those who are well healthy and bring us back together again on Sunday and next Wednesday night we love you in Jesus name you

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Published: Thu Jun 18 2020