Midweek Bible Study | Revelation 2:8-17 | Gary Hamrick

let's pray and then we'll dig into chapter 2 here this evening let's pray father thank you for this time that we can be together in your house Lord we do trust you in good days and in difficult days and we pray that you would use your word now to speak to our hearts we're grateful that you have given us these things and especially in the book of Revelation these things pertaining to now and the things to come so we pray that you would find us ready and we pray that our hearts would be ready Lord focused on you surrender to you Jesus so guide us now in our Bible study here we pray in Jesus name and everybody said amen all right so we're in chapter 2 and I'm gonna walk to the back screen again and just kind of orient ourselves to what's going on here here's our timeline that we're operating on going from chapter 1 all the way through chapter 22 of Revelation but don't don't worry about all of this information because all we're dealing with right now is this period here following the resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus that ushers in the church age so that's chapters 1 through 3 of Revelation and that's what we're focusing on right now and among the things mentioned in chapter 2 and 3 are letters to seven churches and as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago there are three important elements as we understand these seven churches and the letters that are written to these seven churches the first one is that each church is literal in existence these were literal churches actual churches that existed in the first century located in what is today on a map modern Turkey and each of these letters has spiritual relevance as we read through these letters that Jesus dictates and John writes down and these are intended for the the churches that are mentioned here they have spiritual significance the Lord is going to point out some things that they're doing well he's going to also in most cases in five out of the seven cases he's going to rebuke them for things that they're not doing well as we read through it I don't want you to read those things and think well that only applied to those literal churches in the first century we need to have spiritual eyes and ears to see into here those same things that the Lord might be speaking to us today either commending us for things spiritually or or rebuking us for things spiritually so we need to take those things to heart and then thirdly there's there's a historical significance to each of these churches because each of these churches when you line them up these seven churches communicate to us seven different time periods in church history that have either occurred or are occurring or shall occur so it's as if between chapters two and three the Lord has given us a timeline of church history leading up to and including the second coming of Christ and so we're gonna look at it from that standpoint now again just to orient ourselves on a map when we talk about these seven churches we're talking about seven churches that are just below the Black Sea in what was called Asia Minor what is today Turkey and we're talking about just this small little block of area where these seven churches were located and here are these seven churches and as we go through chapters 2 & 3 it goes in a clockwise direction starting with Ephesus and moving up to Smyrna Pergamum Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and the last letter is the letter to Laodicea so last time we got through the letter to the church at Ephesus and just by way of summary of those things here again the Church of Ephesus is seen as when we look at the timeline of church history the Church of Ephesus a literal church but it represents in historical church history the Apostolic Church and the Apostolic Church can be dated from around 33 ad which is when Pentecost started Jesus ascends back into heaven the Holy Spirit falls in Acts chapter 2 the day of Pentecost is really the birth of the church we now take the ministry in the mantle that Christ is given and we now represent him as ambassadors in the world we had the high privilege of explaining to people the good news of the gospel leading people to Christ that's when the church was born that started 33 AD and on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 and the Apostolic age ended around AD 100 when the last of the Apostles this particular Apostle John who was inspired to write revelation basically died at about that age he was in his upper 90s to around a hundred when he died and so it's the end of the first century Church the end of the Apostolic age so that's what Ephesus represents and we talked last time about the elements in the letter to the Church of Ephesus and here are those elements so in each of these letters we're gonna see the same thing we're gonna see Jesus's title we're gonna see a commendation that he gives we're gonna see a complaint that he mentions in most cases and we're gonna see a reward that he also indicates and so for the Church of Ephesus his title was him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands and we talked about how the seven golden lampstands are the churches at the end of chapter one he says it just that plainly the last verse of chapter one and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches so it's Jesus way of saying I walk among the church that even though I'm not visible I by my spirit walk among the churches he commends the Church of Ephesus for their hard-working persevering attitude and and the way that they discerned false doctrines in particular the niccola the Nicolaitans and we'll talk more about them because they come up in tonight's study too but he complains that they've left their first love he complains about how they they don't really love him the way that they did at first and so again as I mentioned last week they didn't lose their first love they left him okay there's a big difference they left him it was an act of the will they decided they didn't want to follow him any longer but Jesus in his reward to them to those who overcome he said that they will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God and we heard about the Tree of Life since Genesis chapter 2 but it reappears at the end of Revelation in revelation 22 and it is a promise to those who overcome that they shall partake of the Tree of Life so that's where we ended here in Revelation chapter 2 at the end of verse 7 and so let's pick up reading now at verse 8 if you notice in your Bibles these are separated by subtitles we come now to the Church of Smyrna in verse 8 and so again on the map we're moving now in a clockwise direction north and this is what it says in verse 8 and to the Angel of the church in Smyrna write these things says the first and the last who was dead and came to life I know your works tribulation and poverty but you are rich and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer indeed the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested and you will have tribulation ten days be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches he overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death so this next church here is the Church of Smyrna and the Church of Smyrna on the timeline of church history represents the suffering church and the dates of this time period in church history are roughly 100 AD which was the end of the Apostolic age that's what closed out the Church of Ephesus to around 312 ad when Constantine made Christianity a state religion and so let me talk about this first before we dive into this this letter here that Jesus dictates what we know about the city of Smyrna because I want to frame these things in terms of a little bit of the history of the city and the church itself and then the spiritual aspect of what Jesus is communicating here through these letters what we know of Smyrna is not found in the Bible it is found in in history Smyrna is mentioned only in the first two chapters of the book of Revelation Smyrna was founded about three centuries before Christ by Alexander the Great it's located approximately 35 miles north of Ephesus the last city that we looked at here and it was along the trade route from Persia to Rome and because of that it was a major commercial city back in the day in Asia Minor it was a seaport city also it was second only to Ephesus in terms of its wealth and today Smyrna survives as a city called Izmir in Turkey Izmir Turkey with a population of about 250,000 people so today it's a pretty populous city in Turkey now Smyrna received its name from a particular product that was one of its greatest commodities back in the day and you hear it reflected in its name Smyrna Smyrna myrrh so myrrh was the important commodity of this city back in that day myrrh was a gum resin that was derived from a shrub that was indigenous to that particular region there in Asia Minor the Bible mentions myrrh in different places and it records three particular uses former it was a very fragrant material that would only this is interesting because it has to do with the context of the story myrrh would only really be fragrant when it was crushed when it was crushed and the Bible speaks of three particular uses former number one as an ingredient in perfume it's mentioned in Psalm 45 verse 8 as an ingredient in perfume I mean all this essential oil stuff it was way back before all of that okay way before doTERRA all right it was all here in the Bible first it was also one of the ingredients of holy anointing oil for the priests when they would anoint the priests for service in Exodus chapter 30 verse 23 and thirdly and probably the most familiar it was an element used in embalming the dead and the Bible tells us in John 19 39 that Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes to the tomb of Jesus to embalm them to basically use as a rubbing joint meant to embalm the dead and so Nicodemus it says in John 19 39 brought about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to embalm to anoint the body of Jesus in his burial now the most notable Christian going back to church history during this particular time period one hundred to 312 ad the most notable Christian who was martyred in Smyrna during this time was a guy historically by the name of Polycarp Poli cart was the bishop of Smyrna and he was burned at the stake in his 90s for his faith that's the reason he was martyred and as he was being burned at the stake Polycarp declared quote for over 80 years I have served my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ not once as he denied me and I shall not deny him and quote now it is interesting to note and encouraging to note that the letter to the Church of Smyrna is only one of two letters the other one is Philadelphia where Jesus has no complaint he has no complaint about them and so here is here's the summary of what we just read and then I'll come back and actually dig out the whole letter but here's the summary Jesus is title is given to us here as the first and the last who was dead and came to life he commends the Church of Smyrna because they were afflicted they were poor they were persecuted he says yet they were faithful and rich in the Lord we'll talk about that a little bit as I said he has no complaint and he offers them a reward the crown of life and he says about them that they will be unhurt by the second death now church historians tell us that it was during this time period when the church suffered tremendous martyrdom first century as well it started the first century under Nero in the 60s ad Nero would fiddle on his balcony as emperor of Rome while Christians were dipped in tar and set as human torches in his backyard so it started under Nero in the sixties AD but it continued into the second century which is what we're talking about here in the 100's 200s in the early 300s ad six million Christians estimated were killed for their faith during this particular time period so we talked about the Church of Smyrna again it was a literal Church but it paints a picture it's a type of the whole period of time that the church particularly suffered under tremendous persecution because there was such tremendous persecution during this time church historians say this is where the sign of the fish came to be now the sign of the fish as many of you have seen basically is an upper arc and a lower arc and it makes the symbol of a fish and Christians would identify themselves secretively to one another by taking their foot in the sand or the dirt when they would meet someone as a way to try to figure out a Christian because we can't really talk about else we're gonna be killed during this time period so one person would talk and take his foot or her foot and make the upper arc like of the fish and if you were a Christian you would take your foot and you would make the lower arc and then the two of you would know oh you're a Christian too it was the sign of the fish and it became a sign for Christianity and still is today when the Romans discovered the secret sign then the early church abandoned the sign of the fish and went to different Greek letters exos for fish and the Ichthus letters stood for Jesus Christ God's Son Savior so each of those letters ik DOS IX th OS stood for that saying Jesus Christ God's Son Savior because so many Christians were being killed for their faith it's no wonder that Jesus has no complaint about them because instead of getting into trouble they were spending their time praying or being martyred and so as a word of encouragement he has nothing bad to say about this church they were the persecuted Church they were the suffering Church and so here look again at this letter in verse 8 again Jesus dictates this letter to the angel of the church we talked about this angel and the Greek is a glose Occulus does not only mean spiritual beings in the heavenly realms it can also just simply mean messenger Jesus called John the Baptist in the original Greek language of Matthew 11 verse 10 Jesus called John the Baptist a gallows meaning messenger because this is a reference to the pastor of the church and this letter is dictated here to the Church of Smyrna Jesus identifies himself as the first in the last who was dead and came to life he's our resurrected Lord God Jesus says there in verse 9 I know your works your tribulation and poverty and the word there for poverty in the Greek is not just poor but they were impoverished they were destitute and you have to remember you're a Jew in the 1st 2nd century and you're a believer in Jesus you have now been cut off from your family they've held a funeral for you your livelihood now has gone down the tank because nobody's gonna buy from you and so you were not only persecuted physically but you were also shunned materially and in every way and so it resulted in extreme poverty these people were impoverished but Jesus adds here he says it's a parenthetical comment but you are rich you're rich you know they might have been materially poor but they were spiritually rich and the same is true for us it doesn't matter what's in your bank account because true wealth is being rich Christ that that's true value is being rich in Christ because you might lose everything materially it's okay you're still wealthy in the Lord you're still rich in Christ and Paul throughout his letters spoke of different kinds of spiritual riches that we have in the Lord for example he talked about the riches of his kindness in Romans 2 verse 4 Paul wrote about the riches of his glory in Romans 9 verse 3 he talked about the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God in romans 11:33 he talked about the riches of God's grace in Ephesians 1:7 he mentions the riches of his glorious inheritance in Ephesians 1:18 and in general he talked about the unsearchable riches of Christ in Ephesians three and verse eight and so we're all rich in the Lord and so Jesus was reminding the people there in Smyrna hey you might be you know materially impoverished but but with me you have everything that you need you are rich in the Lord and so he goes on to say there but he says I know the blasphemy Circle that word of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan now he's talking about a group of Jews in the day known as Judaizers and Judaizers were those who were Jewish believers in Jesus but who believed that salvation was not just believing in Jesus alone but it was also believing in Jesus and doing good works and whenever you add anything to the simplicity of the message that Jesus Christ died for all and whoever puts their faith in Jesus shall be saved whenever you add anything to that you've corrupted the message of the gospel and you've now taken it from a grace oriented salvation to a man's works oriented effort and the Judaizers were doing that and jesus said there it's blasphemy it's blasphemy that's what he calls it it's blasphemy because those who say that they're Jews and they're not their Judaizers but but they're but they're not really representing the the message of the gospel they're not really messing representing grace they're they're elevating works over grace and he says therefore it's like it's the synagogue of Satan seyton inspires the things that are in conflict with the message of the gospel every heretical teaching every cultic of heretical teaching is really at the end of the day it's inspired by Satan because Satan wants none to be saved he doesn't want you to come to the to the knowledge of of salvation through faith in Jesus so he corrupts that message in every way that he can and that's why Jesus said it's blasphemous and it's of the synagogue of Satan he says in verse 10 do not fear any of those things which are about which you are about to suffer again this is the suffering church myrrh it's it's appropriate here because myrrh only was fragrant when it was crushed and he says indeed the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested in it you will have tribulation at smalti' it's not the Great Tribulation yet for ten days now what is the ten days deal most Bible scholars believe that it is simply a a an allegorical statement for the 10 worst Roman Empire Roman emperors ten days meaning the 10 worst Roman emperors and I'm I'll just read you the list real quickly quicker than you can take notes but here's some of the things that they did so it probably refers to in this order these are the Roman emperors in this order Nero 64 to 68 AD he burned Rome and he blamed Christians he crucified and threw Christians into pits with wild animals he executed Paul and Peter and as I mentioned he made Christians into human torch's the second emperor was Domitian 92 96 ad he killed thousands in Rome and he banished John this John to the island of Patmos next to him was Trajan 104 to 117 ad he outlawed Christianity he burned Ignatius at the stake after him was Marcus Aurelius 161 to 180 ad he tortured and beheaded Christians he killed Justin Martyr next to him was septimus severus in 202 211 ad he burned crucified and beheaded Christians and he killed Iranian Eze are all famous Christians of the early faith after him was Maksim Aeneas - 35 - - 37 he executed Christians after him was Deki Asst 252 253 AD he tried to wipe out Christianity he killed Alexander of Jerusalem after him was valerian 2:57 at 260 ad tried to wipe out Christianity - executed the Bishop of Carthage after him was aurélien 272 275 AD persecuted Christians any way he could and then tenth one was Diocletian 303 to 312 ad he burned the scriptures he destroyed churches he required everyone to sacrifice to Roman gods so it's probably a veiled reference to the ten worst of the Roman emperors and he adds there be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life there are five Crown's mentioned in the Bible the crown of life mentioned here in Revelation 2:10 again in James 1:12 also in 1st Corinthians 9 that speaks of the incorruptible crown in 1st Thessalonians 2 it speaks of the crown of rejoicing in 2nd Timothy 4 it speaks to the crown of righteousness and in 1st Peter chapter 5 it speaks to the crown of glory there are different crowns that God says he's gonna give us don't worry though if some of your like I hope I get at least one and others of you are thinking how am I gonna balance five on my head shame on you for thinking that the fact of the matter is the Bible says in Revelation that when we come before the Lord we cast our crowns at his feet because we're undone so as many crimes as you might be given none of us will hold on to it because we're going to be looking at Jesus and feel so you know so small in the presence of the glory of God that we're gonna be casting our crowns at his feet and so it's a wonderful temporary thing that God gives us but we end up at the end of the day giving it back to him and he ends the letter by saying he who has an ear let him hear this is similar to every letter let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches he who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death now you can write in the margin of your Bible there revelation 20 verse 14 and revelation 20 verse 14 I'll just read it if you want to turn there somebody needs to take your medication in Revelation 20 verse 14 it says then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire this is the second death and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire so here's what the Bible teaches if you're born twice you die once if you're born once you die twice what does that mean here's what it means all of us experienced physical birth were born once if you're born again that's the term that Jesus uses in John chapter 3 when he's speaking to Nicodemus Nicodemus talks asked Jesus at night uses comes to Jesus says how can a man be you know born again Jesus says unless you're born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven and Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about life that we can have through faith in Jesus Christ when we surrender our life to Jesus we are you know that's it's a Christian lingo we're born again but it's straight out of the vilest John chapter 3 we're born again we have a spiritual birth and thus when we have a spiritual birth because we put our faith and trust of what Christ did though our body of flesh may die our spirit will live forever with the Lord so if we're born twice if we have a natural birth and a spiritual birth we will only experience a physical death our body dies we get a glorified body and we live forever with the Lord okay but if you're only born once if you only are born naturally but you never put your faith and trust in Christ you die twice because you not only died a natural death like everybody but the second death is the lake of fire where those who have rejected Christ have not put their faith in trust in Christ will be cast forever and so people will experience a second death that's the lake of fire nobody has to though that's why God has made gracious provision through faith in Jesus to escape death to escape punishment to escape what was intended for okay the punishment intended for us Jesus took upon himself so that if we have faith in Him we can be born twice but only died wants but if you are if you are only born once because you don't receive Christ and aren't spiritually reborn then you experience the second death and so his promise to the Church of Smyrna has promised to all of us is that if we overcome we won't be hurt by the second death we won't be thrown into the lake of fire we will experience eternal life being in the presence of the Lord forever all right the next church let's see if we can go on and get through the Church of Pergamos if you notice verse 12 is the Church of Pergamus so we're heading again in a clockwise direction around our map and we come now to the northern part of these this territory and we talk about the Church of Pergamos it says in verse 12 under 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 you have there those who hold to 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 there it is again we talked about it in the letter to Ephesus which thing I hate repent or else I will come to you quickly and will 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 alright so as we continue on the timeline of church history that we've moved from Ephesus to Smyrna we come to the Church of Pergamos the Church of Pergamos is a picture of the time period known as the state Church from 312 ad to 606 ad again it so it was a literal church but in the timeline of chronology it paints a picture for us of the time period known as the state church 3 1280 - 606 ad so in 312 ad Constantine made Christianity a state religion and he permeated it with pagan customs and practices it ends at 606 ad when something happens in church history it is the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church and it's segues from the church the state church that Constantine put in place into the Roman Catholic Church now this is going to step on a few toes but I'm just going to tell you what the Bible says and I'm gonna tell you what church history has taught us so that we can understand a perspective of things happening leading up to the second coming of Jesus Christ because obviously the Roman Catholic Church is continuing even today and here are its beginnings now a little bit about pergamus first before we get into the whole spiritual aspect of what it represents in church history pergamus was a wealthy City it was located about 20 miles inland it was not a port city it's about 20 miles inland from the Aegean Sea and it was on the bank of the caucus River about 50 miles north of Smyrna so we've just left Smyrna got about 50 miles to the north now we're in Pergamos it's the modern city today of Bergama which was built among the ruins of Pergamos and bergamot has a population today of only about fourteen thousand the people of pergamus as we're gonna see reflected in this letter became self-centered from their accumulated wealth because it was a very wealthy city they became very self-centered they became obsessed also with the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom through reading nothing against reading but here's just historically what happened Pergamos boasted of one of the largest libraries in its day it had over 200,000 books in Pergamos it would later because it was part of the Roman Empire be given as a gift all 200,000 books given as a gift by Marcus Mark Antony to Cleopatra and sent to Egypt okay so because of its vast library people boasted not only in their wealth but also in their accumulated knowledge Pergamus was also known for the invention of something the Egyptian pharaoh at one point in history outlawed the export of papyrus which was the only a parchment for riding on and so in Pergamos was discovered was invented by one guy by the name of u many's the second paper u many's ii realized that paper could be made from the Pope of wood and so one of the one of the greatest commodities of Pergamus was paper and that's why they became so wealthy because they exported paper they invented it they distributed it they exported it and so much of the city's wealth is attributed to the invention of paper that happened right there in Pergamos the spiritual climate of Pergamos was polytheistic again this is still part of the Roman Empire and a large forty foot statue of the Greek god Zeus was situated atop an 800 high 800 foot high mountain there in the middle of the city and it was unearthed by a German engineer by the name of Karl human in 1878 and today it is on display in East Berlin but as a result of this statue this great statue to Zeus the city was very polytheistic they also worshiped Athena Dionysus and oskol a pious escalade pious was the god of Medicine represented even today by a serpent on a staff and what's important about pergamus is the greek word that is the root of the name pergamus gamos gim OS gamos that word is found in our English vocabulary related to marriage monogamy monogamous is to be married to one person polygamy polygamous is to be married to many people right and so gamos is the root word for marriage what is interesting about pergamus is the indictment against them you'll see here is that the church had married the world it was a very carnal time in church history where they had adopted worldly practices and they brought them into church practices and and thus the state Church which Constantine started became much more Roman looking than it did Christian looking is everybody tracking with me this becomes the the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church now let me just back up a little bit and talk briefly about Constantine because this is important understanding what's going on here in church history in 312 ad Constantine had an epiphany and he writes about it and we don't know if it was legit or not but giving the benefit of the doubt that it was legit he just took it to a wrong extreme in 312 ad he had a vision when Constantine went out to war he had a vision of a cross a fiery cross he says that he saw in the sky and he heard in Latin the words in this sign conquer so he started conquering in in the name of Christ and not a good thing and so he took this whole epiphany and this vision to heart and he decided that Christ will not only be his Savior but he would mandate Christianity for the entire Roman Empire he would require everybody to become a Christian now at first you might think wow that's pretty cool I mean for for you know Christianity to not only you know go from Christians being persecuted which happened right up until when Constantine has this epiphany Christians were being martyred by by the tens of thousands by milt by the millions again six million in just the second century - from going from that to getting an elevated status now you're a Christian during the fourth century now with Constantine you are living now in an elevated status you have a protected elevated status as a Christian which again might sound pretty cool the idea that government is actually elevating Christians and keeping them not only safe from being martyred but elevating them in a social status but here's obviously the downside to it you you tell everybody you got to be a Christian who's really a Christian who isn't because now all of a sudden you have to do it or else the consequences it's completely flipped if you were a Christian before Constantine you're going to be martyred if you're not a Christian in the days of constantly after Constantine you're going to be persecuted so everybody's got to get on board to become a Christian well that makes for a lot of fake Christians I'm just going to be a Christian because that's that's the state-required thing to do and and it takes away the heart it takes away the heart where people want to come to Christ because they personally love Jesus now it's mandated by the government so on its face is anything well that's pretty cool but when you realize what happens as a result of that being mandated it's not cool at all it forces people into a religion rather than a relationship and over the course of time it took on more of the Roman culture than it did a Christian culture and during this particular time period several practices became introduced into the church and here are some of them and they're they're familiar but during this time period between 312 and 606 AD in the church they started praying for the dead purgatory the doctrine of purgatory which is not a biblical doctrine started during this time period they also during this time period started worshipping saints and angels sort of worshipping saints and angels during this time period they started worshipping Mary the mother of Jesus during this time period priests started wearing robes and clerical collars to separate themselves from the rest of the laity this is what happened during this time period and the church entered into this season where the Roman Catholic Church is birthed in 606 ad because these things were leading up to this state religion that was based on a mandate rather than a relationship based on the heart this is what happened in church history now I'm gonna give the summary and then we come back next week we'll unpack the whole letter to the Church of Pergamos but here's the title for Jesus in this letter he's called him who has the sharp two-edged sword and so you you see here these coming here with some he's got a beef against this church and we'll talk about why exactly as you might already have picked up he commends them though that they have not renounced their faith despite the martyrdom of Antipas that guy's mentioned there in the letters you notice as we read through it and Antipas is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible so he was somebody that Jesus by name commends this guy was martyred for his faith and the rest of the church didn't let that death distract them from being true to the faith many of them but he has a complaint his complaint is a marriage of the church in the world and he calls out specifically to doctrines the doctrine of balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was talking about next week and he does offer them a reward because he does encourage them to repent in verse 16 five out of the seven letters Jesus says if you repent you can be rewarded so there's always hope there's always hope folks and he calls them to repent and if they do he offers them the reward of hidden manna will mention what that means next week and a white stone with a new name now you might love the name that you were given by your parents or you may not whether you like your name that you've been given or you don't news bulletin you're getting a new one as a Christian you're gonna get a new one that only Jesus knows but it's gonna be a name reflective of some aspect of your relationship with him but all of that is for next week friends so let's pray and then wash your hands lord thank you for this time in your word and we take to heart these things he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches so as it relates to the Church of Smyrna Lord whatever persecution we might face for our faith is nothing in comparison to what these Saints went through martyred burned at the stake killed because of their faith in Jesus Christ lord help us to cherish the freedom that we have and may we not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because Lord we have such freedom to be able to share the good news why would be--if why would we be afraid Lord these people had reason to be afraid we certainly don't so Lord may we be challenged by their story and encouraged and emboldened to be unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ to live out our faith in a real world in a real way that brings glory and honor to you then one day Lord we might with them partake of the Tree of Life thank you for this time in your word be with us as we go home tonight Lord and keep us safe keep us healthy keep us well Lord we trust you in Jesus name and everybody said

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Length: 41min 37sec (2497 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020