Letters to the Churches Part 3

All right, we are gonna get started, and those of you who are online,

I did not capture any questions if you asked them. And kind of moving forward, if you have questions, save them for this time.

Because what we end up doing is, in order to put it onto my laptop, we put it on an iPad first, and then

I re -log in, and then switch the meeting over to my laptop. And as a result of that,

I don't get to see the chat messages. So if you had a question earlier as a result of the sermon, then the questions, you can repost them in the chat online here, and we'll try to get to them.

We're gonna continue with our study of the book of Revelation, and let's pray before we get started.

Let my cry come to you, O Lord, and give me understanding according to your word. Let my plea come before you, deliver me according to your word.

My lips will pour forth praise for you teach me your statutes. My tongue will sing of your word.

For all your commandments are right, let your hand be ready to help me. For I have chosen your precepts, and I long for your salvation,

O Lord. And your law is my delight. Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me.

I have gone astray like a sheep. Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

And that prayer, by the way, is taken from Psalm 119 verses 169 through 176, so.

Okay, we're going to continue our walk through the book of Revelation. We're still in the letters, and let me do this.

I'm gonna put the chat over here, and keep this here.

Bless you, whoever that was, and there we go. I'm gonna put that up along the top over here.

Just trying to organize the real estate on my computer. Okay, last week, when we left off, we talked about the angel of the

Smyrna being faithful unto death. We talked about the letter to the church in Pergamum.

And you'll note, the one who has the sharp two -edged sword is kind of a polite way of talking about the fact that Christ himself judges.

And we note that it is Christ's prerogative even to judge us who are in the church. And so when

Christ makes it clear that there are things that he has against you, and he calls you to repent, then you repent.

And then we'll remember that Balaam here, he was a prophet for a prophet who also came up with this great retaliatory scheme in order to cause

Israel to stumble by leading them to, well, sending in the hot Midianite chicks to lead them astray into idolatry, sacrificing to idols, and also engaging in sexual immorality.

Balaam himself lost his life here. We'll also note, just by way of review, that Christ also is against the teachings of the

Nicolaitans. Nicolaitans are, again, a Gnostic heresy. And because they deny that matter is good, they mistreat their bodies and engage in sexual immorality, thinking it's no big deal.

And so you'll note that Christ says to the church in Pergamum that if the

Nicolaitans, those who hold to their teaching, do not repent, that he himself will come and war against them with the sword of his mouth.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers, I will give the hidden manna.

I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except for the one who receives it.

These are kind of like baptismal promises, and a little bit difficult to know with absolute certainty what is meant here regarding the white stone.

It's an interesting metaphor here. So moving along then,

Revelation 2 .18, to the angel of the church at Thyatira write the words of the son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, whose feet are like burnished bronze.

So again, you'll note that this is a reference coming back to the initial revelation of Jesus to John there in exile.

And this original vision of Jesus, parts of him are highlighted here. And Christ says,

I know your works, your love, your faith, and your service, and your patient endurance.

And that your latter works exceed the first. So Christ pays close attention to what's going on in his church.

But I have this against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Now, let's just say, I'll kind of put this in a little bit of an understatement, that in today's

NAR charismatic churches, Jezebel is mentioned with frequency.

She's mentioned with frequency. And so, I will give you an example of a misappropriation of the concept.

So when, like my friend Amy Spreeman, she spoke at the PCR conference a few years ago here.

Amy Spreeman does discernment work, and as part of her focus, she offers correction and warning regarding some of the false teachings within the

NAR. And some within the NAR have accused her of having the spirit of Jezebel.

Yeah, it's kind of a junk drawer. It's a phrase that basically any female opponent of the

NAR qualifies as having a spirit of Jezebel. But there's a very specific concept here.

Now, we don't know with certainty whether or not the woman Jezebel mentioned here is a historical person who really was on the membership roles of this church at Thyatira.

Or if it's just symbolically spoken of regarding somebody in their congregation who claims to be a prophetess.

But you're gonna note here, what are her two sins? Religious syncretism and teaching

Christ's servants to practice sexual immorality. Syncretism and sexual immorality.

Syncretism is this basic belief that all religions are valid.

And that worship of Jesus in any manner is beneficial and good.

And if you want to worship Allah, that's okay too. If you want to worship

Shiva or Vishnu or engage in some of the philosophical Eastern religions like Buddhism, that's okay too.

And so you'll note there's, when it comes to syncretism, we've seen in our lifetime major manifestations of syncretism.

I would point to the emergent church movement as a major example.

And although that thing has technically disappeared as a movement,

Phil Johnson, who works for John MacArthur and is a friend of mine, he likens them to the weeds in your garden.

Like in the spring, the dandelions come up. Hopefully, I'm not the only one who has this problem. But man, the dandelions are awful around here.

It's like the first thing that comes up, the grass comes to life and the dandelions show up. And getting these things under control is terrible.

And it seems like as soon as you whack them down and cut them with a lawnmower and put out the weed stuff, they still send up those shoots with those seeds, right?

And they're so pretty. And the kids love to grab those things and go, you know, no. I don't want that in my yard, right?

But they're so pretty. Anyway, so Phil John - He lived in that other car once.

Do you have weeds in your vehicle now? So Ashley's got a weed garden going on inside of her car, yeah.

So Phil Johnson's metaphor is that the emergent church went to weed seed, and their dandelion weeds have now blown into all corners of the visible church.

And I think he's got a point there. But if you remember, the quintessential example of syncretism was

Brian McLaren's book of about a decade ago called A Generous Orthodoxy. Do you guys remember this book at all?

All right, well, it's good that you don't. I can't forget it cuz I spent a lot of time fighting its concepts.

And the major idea behind The Generous Orthodoxy is that Brian McLaren postulated and actually proposed this idea that somebody can be a follower of God in the way of Islam, the follower of God in the way of Buddha.

And one year, like the year after he published the book, The Generous Orthodoxy, to kinda show that he's gonna practice what he preaches,

Brian McLaren observed Ramadan with the Muslims. And this was covered by some major Christian media outlets at the time.

And of course, I was writing against it, and I was told what a boogerhead I was for -

You're so unloving, you're so unkind. But let me do this real quick. I'm gonna find my keynote, here we go.

Hang on a second here, there we go. And I'm gonna use this as a whiteboard. Although technically

I have a whiteboard as part of Zoom.

I'm gonna do this though, I'm gonna - Hello, close, new. And I'll just go with white.

I just need a - This'll work. Okay, now another version of this.

Rick Warren, years ago, had a fellow working for him, and he put together a document called the

Kingsway Initiative, or the Kingsway Document. They were working with a major mosque in the Los Angeles area.

And their fundamental document was called

A Common Word Between Us. And where they were basically putting out verbiage that made it appear like Saddleback believes that Christians and Muslims worship the same

God. Have you ever heard this concept? Okay, some people have called it Chrislam.

And let's just say that although Rick Warren vehemently denies that he is a teacher of Chrislam, the things that he's said publicly in the past continue to haunt him along these lines.

And one of the major teachers at Saddleback, he was a fellow who taught something called Kingdom Circles.

And in order for me to do this correctly, I'm gonna have to do a few things here. So let's take the fill, and we're going to fill you with nothing.

And for the stroke, or my border, I need a border. Okay, so we want that kind of border, maybe a little more than that.

What do you think? And so the way they argued is that, and if you've ever seen the presentation, this is the classic presentation of what's called

Kingdom Circles. So the way it works is that they'll say that this circle represents the kingdom of God.

Right? And so what they do then is, using logic and not biblical text, this is kind of an interesting game that they play, they'll say something like this, all right?

So let me ask you Lutherans out there, all right? This circle, we're gonna say this circle represents

Lutheranism. Is the kingdom of God bigger than Lutheranism? Of course, yeah.

Are there Christians who worship in Baptist churches, who worship in Methodist churches?

Of course, of course we say that. So they'll say, well, you'll note that the kingdom of God is bigger than Lutheranism.

It's bigger than Methodism. It's bigger than the Baptist church. And so what we'll do here is we'll copy this, and so one of these will represent

Lutherans, the other Methodists, the other whatever. And of course,

I'll do this because I'm just feeling ornery. We'll even make a circle for the Calvinists, and we'll make it really small.

All right. My apologies. I'm doing that just to be ornery because globally,

Lutherans way, way are the bigger number than Calvinists are.

I do think it's kind of fat. But here in the United States, we even outnumber them ginormously here in the

United States. But the problem is there's a lot of Lutherans who are kind of Lutheran in name only nowadays.

So here we go. So we have no problem. The big circle is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God. And so they'll say the goal then really is not to make people members of your denomination or your particular sect.

The goal is to make them members of the kingdom of God. And so then they will come up with an interesting circle.

And we get one more circle. And let's put this one in. And they'll say, well, what about Islam?

They're in the kingdom of God, right? And everybody in the room goes, wow,

I never thought of it that way. When they should have been saying, that's idolatry. I'm sorry, but no.

And so this major leader at Saddleback was teaching these things and got busted for it because it was

Amy Spreeman who caught him and took his videos and put them on one of her blogs where he was teaching that Muslims and Buddhists and people in other religions are still under the big umbrella of the word of God.

And you'll note if that's the case, then what does this do to evangelism? It just completely destroys it.

I don't need to share the gospel with you, because you're already in the kingdom of God, yeah.

And you'll note that Muslims do not share a similar sentiment towards us. I do find it fascinating that with all the kerfuffles going on in the states regarding public worship nowadays, right now during the pandemic, that I don't see any of the

US politicians threatening to shut down a mosque. I'm just saying, they're ominously silent on that front, okay?

We're just gonna shut down churches, okay? All right, so we're gonna note then that scripture clearly teaches that syncretism is not a thing, all right?

We do say that sound doctrine matters, and we recognize that the kingdom of God is definitely larger than Lutheranism, definitely larger than the

Methodists. And so we have no problem saying that there are people who are true believers in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, they're regenerate, and they attend churches that teach doctrines that are different than what the

Lutherans teach, we have no problem saying that. Now, where we will draw the line then is where we'll say you cross the line from error into heresy when the

Jesus you teach is a different Jesus than the Jesus of scripture. The gospel that is being taught in your church is a different gospel than the biblical gospel.

The spirit that you worship is a different spirit than the Holy Spirit of Scripture. And so you'll note first commandment issues are going to determine whether or not somebody is a heretic or just an error, and that's the idea.

So all of that being said, coming back then to our text. So as we look at Jezebel, Jezebel is seducing people while claiming to be a prophetess.

So you'll note, again, if this is a historical person, that this person is claiming to be a prophetess, claiming to get direct revelation from God.

And this direct revelation from God that what is coming out of her mouth are sexual immorality is okay, it doesn't give us specifics.

And engaging in syncretistic practices, that's okay too, and it's not.

So you'll note that, as this would then relate to us today, where you have different church leaders saying things like,

God blesses same -sex unions. That's not true.

The church needs to bless same -sex unions. The church needs to get with the times and not condemn people who want to engage in polyamory.

And the church shouldn't have any problems with adultery and things like that either. What do we say to that?

God's word says, and you quote the appropriate passage accordingly.

And then, on the same time, when it comes to syncretism, when it comes to syncretism, we recognize that the first commandment says, you shall have no other gods.

You shall have no other gods. So we do not have fellowship with practicing

Hindus, practicing Muslims, practicing Buddhists. Instead, we recognize that they are worshiping a different god or gods, plural, and we share the good news with them.

We tell them that the one true God was born of the

Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, buried so that they can be forgiven.

Call them to repent and to believe in the God that is. And we have scripture that makes it very clear that this is the route that we're supposed to go.

When you read the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul never says, you worshipers of Zeus, good on you, you're already in the kingdom, my work here is done,

I'm just gonna leave town. He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that at all.

And so if somebody's teaching you something within the visible church, which would make you look at Acts 17 and go, well, the

Apostle Paul was a booger head, then you got a problem here, all right?

So Paul is sent off to Athens. It says, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him, for he saw that the city was full of idols.

Idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him, and some said, what does this babbler wish to say?

Others said, well, he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities, because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

So we know what Paul was doing there. So in a town where he was provoked because there were idols everywhere, what does he do?

He does the same thing he does in every town. He doesn't change it at all, does the same thing. He preaches

Jesus and the resurrection, calls people to penitent faith in Christ. So they took him and brought him to the

Areopagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is that you're presenting. For you bring some strange things to our ears.

We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except for telling or hearing something new.

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.

So you know, Paul recognizes that people in other religions who worship other deities, that they are religious.

That's not the issue. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship,

I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this

God I proclaim to you. Now I recently read, regarding this unknown deity, there's apparently a story behind it.

In Athens, a plague had ravaged the city, and they could not get any relief.

It just seemed to go on and on and on. Does that sound familiar? And so they had exhausted all the deities that they knew who they needed to make sacrifices to and needed to beseech in order to bring the plague to an end.

And finally, they reasoned that maybe there's a deity we haven't considered or that we do not know anything about.

And this was the impetus for setting up some type of a religious site that was dedicated to the unknown

God. It was specifically in the hopes of getting relief from the plague that was ravaging the city of Athens at that time.

So Paul goes with the unknown one, and that's important, by the way.

Notice Paul doesn't say, God is a lot like Zeus. If you step out of line, he throws thunderbolts at you.

He's a lot like Mars, or he's a lot like Athena, or he's a lot, he doesn't do anything like that. He starts with a blank slate.

The one they know nothing about, the one that they are suspicious as to its existence and believe that it's possible that it exists.

And so he begins with a blank slate, and he says to the unknown God, so therefore you worship as unknown, this then

I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being

Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands.

And you'll note here that these statements that he's making run completely contrary to the belief systems of the

Athenians. Those who worship Zeus and Athena, they did believe that God's inhabited temples here on earth, and that they were served by human hands.

So the things he's saying are 180 degrees opposite direction of their existing belief systems.

So as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So he made from one man every nation of mankind to live in all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries for their dwelling place, so that they should seek

God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, yet he's actually not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and we have our being.

And if you look at your note there, let me move this up so I can see this. I gotta move things around on my screen real estate.

Hello, it's not moving. There we go, okay. In him we move and have our being, probably quoted from Epimenides of Crete.

So note he's quoting a pagan philosopher at this point, a pagan poet. But what that pagan poet now is, it's because what that poet said, what

Epimenides said is true, it gets rolled into scripture here. In God we live and move and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring.

And this is from Eratos' poem, and I can't, it's Phinomena, all right?

For we are indeed his offspring, all right? Now quoting them, he's finding the part where what they believe is true, while at the same time distinguishing those parts that what they believe that are not true, that he cannot agree with.

You'll note that no religious system is 100 % wrong. No religious system is 100 % wrong in what they say.

What about Scientology? Even Scientology acknowledges that the sky is blue.

Okay, so the idea here is that, with some religions you can say, it's kind of like a broken clock, it tells the time correctly twice a day, all right?

But two minutes out of 24, still, that's better than 0%.

So there's always some degree of truth with every religion or any philosophy. But you use that common ground for the purpose of building off of it, in order to proclaim the truth about Christ.

And the areas where they are in deep, deep error. So then Paul says,

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, or an image formed by the art and the imagination of man.

And again, you'll note that this is a very scandalous statement that he's saying on his part. Scandalous! Come on, our entire religious system here in Athens is based upon images made of gold and silver and stone, and the artisans who form them make a very good living.

So the times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. And funny enough, that's the deal breaker for them.

Whoa, wait a second, somebody rose from the dead? So when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, others said, we're going to hear you again about this.

So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him, and they believed among whom was Dionysius the

Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. So you'll note there wasn't a big revival that broke out in Athens.

A handful of people hearing the gospel and the good news. God, the Holy Spirit, regenerates them and brings them to faith in Christ.

And so you had a tiny, tiny church in Athens to begin with. But you'll note that Paul never compromised, nor did he engage in syncretism.

And even his quoting of the poets of the Greeks was not for the purpose of syncretism.

It was for the purpose of at least finding that nugget of common ground where we had some agreement, so that he can build out from there, and strongly, strongly oppose those areas that are completely incompatible with faith in Christ.

All right? But in our day, if you say that Jesus and faith in him is the only way of salvation, yeah, yeah, you're gonna get in trouble.

You're just gonna get in trouble. And you don't even have to worry about the government at this point.

You just don't. Because who are the people who are the enforcers of this belief that all religions are true?

Who are the enforcers today? It's not the government. It's your friends on Facebook.

It's the people in the community. Some men and women in the church, right?

You speak out, you step out of line regarding what's agreed upon, what's politically correct.

Because you'll note, Scripture is not politically correct. And it's becoming less and less so by the day.

The enforcers are the people in our community, in our communities. And we face, in proclaiming the truth, we face, for real, ostracism.

We face, for real, potentially losing our jobs. Now, if you already lost your job because of COVID, then you don't have to worry about it.

Just say whatever you want. No, actually, you can't. Because what do employers do now as part of the employment process?

They do a social media background check. We see here that you liked this tweet that was put out by Donald Trump.

We're sorry, but we don't hire your type here, right?

But it's not fake news at all. No, no, no. So, you know, we see here that you quoted

Genesis that says that God created the male and female. These are dangerous, dangerous radical thoughts.

We don't want our employees to reflect those kinds of values. Yeah, you'll notice that the ones championing tolerance are the least tolerant.

Less than the people on the planet, right? Diversity, in their opinion, is diversity of skin color, but even the unification of thought.

All right, so coming back then here, this Jezebel woman, she is seducing servants into practicing sexual immorality.

Do you think sexual immorality is okay for Christians? No. The answer is no.

Is it a forgivable sin? Yes. So we repent and we receive the forgiveness of Christ.

And here's the thing. When it comes to sexual immorality, let's take a look at a standard that is in Scripture as it relates to the church.

Because one of the things that comes up quite frequently is, all right, you know, I'm a Christian. What do

I do about, you know, I work at such and such a place and, you know, a bunch of people are all sleeping together and it's just crazy out there.

What do we do in a situation like that? Well, listen to what the Apostle Paul says regarding a fellow who was sleeping with his father's wife and was an active member of the church of Corinth.

All right, this is a call for excommunication. This is in 1 Corinthians 5. So it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans.

For a man has his father's wife. You know that you've really, really messed up sexually when the world goes, you do what?

Okay, because generally the world's open to a lot of stuff. And he says, Now, in this particular case, what needs to happen is this guy needs to repent.

And in 2 Corinthians, there's a call actually to restore this guy to fellowship. So you'll note that he's, the call here in 1

Corinthians is for his excommunication. And in 2 Corinthians, we learn that the guy is penitent and sorrowful for his sin.

And the Apostle Paul says, bring him back, bring him back. And so here's what Paul says,

And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the

Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you're to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh.

And here's the idea. Excommunication is not for the purpose of sending somebody to hell. It's so that they'll repent and be saved.

So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. That's the idea. So you're boasting regarding this fellow.

And you got to wonder how that boasting went. Oh, isn't it great that Jesus forgives all of our sins?

And yeah, I know you're sleeping with your dad's wife. That's kind of creepy, but yay,

Jesus loves you. You know, what is it? You know, you know. So Paul says, By the way, great sentence, which again shows the

Passover is a type and shadow of the life of Christ. You'll understand the Passover as you find its connection points to Jesus.

So let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice, the leaven of evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity, as well as what?

Truth. So I wrote to you in my letter. Now here's how we operate as Christians.

Do not associate with the sexually immoral people. And watch the caveat.

Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy, or the swindlers, or the idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.

Okay, so when you go to Walmart, you don't need to worry about whether or not the lady at the cashier's desk is moral or not.

That just doesn't matter. You say, I can't have you check me out because I think you're sexually immoral, or you know, we don't even think about such things, right?

Where do we worry about that? He says, I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, a reviler, a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

And now this is not talking about somebody who has committed a sin of greed, or sexual immorality, or idolatry.

It's talking about an impenitent brother who's practicing these things currently, all right?

In that situation, Paul says, don't even eat with such a one, for what have

I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

God judges those outside, so purge the evil person from among you.

Now, I'm gonna note something here. If Christians had been vigilant in obeying this text, would we have impenitent homosexuals as pastors in particular denominations today?

No. Would we have men who have been thrice divorced and twice committed adultery doing the same thing?

No, of course not. So you'll note then that when it comes to impenitent sin, and that exemplifying and defining who a person is, the church is to judge.

And then you'll note, in the list, this is an interesting list. So those who are sexually immoral, the greedy.

If we were to expel the greedy from the church, would TBN be on the earth this day?

No, okay? Idolaters, would the generous orthodoxy of Brian McLaren been a

New York Times bestselling book? No. This one's a tough one, Reviler.

Have you guys ever heard of the sin of calumny? You ever heard of that one? Okay, let me show you how it's spelled.

This is in that same type of sin. Let me do this real quick. How do we spell calumny?

And let me just go this direction. I want a new blank slide, and I want that. And I'm gonna spell it for us.

Hang on a second here. I did something wrong, which is always my fault when I do. I hate it when

I do that. Okay, I wish there was a way. Can I, no, hold on, go this way.

There we go, okay. Calumny, C -A -L -U -M -N -Y, okay.

Let me make that bigger. Calumny.

All right, that's the sin, okay. You'll find that word in the Old Testament in some translations.

And calumny is the sin that is being referred to as the reviler.

And so let me show you what this word means in the Greek. Loideras, sorry, loideras.

And let me get this bigger, here we go. A reviler is an abusive person.

And when you look at the cross -references to revilers, this is going to be either physically, verbally abusive person, or somebody who has complete disdain and engages in like over -the -top slander of people who hold proper offices, either within the government or within the church.

Let me give you an example of a reviler that you'd be kind of surprised at. But the people who are the

Trump is not my president and all they ever do is just slander Trump.

Now, listen, Trump is, he's a sinner extraordinaire, I get that, okay.

But everything they say and do for the purpose of creating a false narrative is designed to slander him and to revile him.

And they never treat him with any respect whatsoever, despite the fact that he holds the office of the

President of the United States. As a Christian, whether or not you voted for the fellow who's in the office, you show respect for the person in the office by virtue of the fact that he holds the office and God is the one who has established the government.

Do you guys remember when the apostle Paul was on trial, or at least he was brought before the chief priest?

He didn't know it was the chief priest and he said something, he kind of quipped back at the chief priest and he was struck in the mouth.

Bam, how dare you speak that way to the chief priest? What did

Paul do? I'm sorry, I didn't realize that he was the one, that he held that office.

And he backed down and he actually apologized for what he said.

So a reviler, that's one example of a reviler, okay. Another example of revilers, all right, there's a fellow who

I've made note of, who claims to be doing discernment ministry and the only thing he traffics in is slander.

That's the only thing he ever traffics in, slander, slander, slander, slander.

He put a video out claiming that Justin Peters, who has a discernment ministry, that Justin Peters was a hypocrite and that he was a sinner and that he was guilty of hiding emails regarding some scandal that he had concocted regarding a woman by the name of Dorian Virtue.

So Justin Peters put out a video and his board of elders that oversee his ministry and basically exonerated him of all the slanderous charges and has his fellow apologized?

No, that's an example of a reviler, all right, somebody who's engaging in calumny.

And so Lloyd O 'Ross also can be talking about, and this is something we need to come to grips with here, can also be talking about somebody who's physically abusive to their spouse.

This is a form of reviling, all right. And one of the things that just galls me and something

I'm very sad about is that the church has not come to grips properly with the fact that there are women who are in physically abusive marriages.

And they easily are able to spot hypocrisy along these lines. Hypocrisy along,

I'll give you an example. There was a woman who attended a very well -known church in the Minneapolis area, a very well -known popular evangelical pastor there.

And she was in an abusive marriage. Her husband was beating her, beating her children and she had the bruises to prove it.

And so she, to save her life and to save the life of her children, separated from her husband and divorced him because of his abuse.

She was excommunicated from that church and told that what she had done was she had no grounds for a divorce.

When in reality, if you actually search out the scriptures, abuse does warrant a divorce. But then just this past week, the pastor who signed off on this woman's excommunication, he was there in attendance at his son's second marriage.

And the world sees this and they go, what's going on here? And so the sin of calumny, those who are revilers, those who are abusers, the scriptures say that we are to put them outside of the church.

And so we've got to come to grips with this idea that when a man is abusing physically, verbally, doesn't matter, the two kind of go hand in hand anyway, their spouse, that they are guilty of not loving their spouse the way

Christ has loved the church. That they are committing the sin of calumny. They are abusers.

They are revilers. And scripture here in 1 Corinthians 5 says that we are to judge them and put them outside of the church.

And so one of the things I may end up doing in the near future is doing a video teaching on the lost sin, the forgotten sin of calumny and the implications regarding it.

And this is just a sheer quantity. The increase of abusive marriages nowadays is frightening.

It's absolutely frightening what's out there. All I can say to you young people is take your time and choose wisely.

You don't want to get into a physically abusive marriage. And if your parents are pointing that out, you know, that you're in danger, listen to them and don't say this, but I love him or I love her.

By the way, the abuse can go either way. You know, that's just emotions. Those go away.

All right, okay, so we're off. We're off to the races on a few things.

Okay, so yeah, yeah, light. Yeah, it's kind of such a fluffy topic.

Okay, so don't associate with anyone. Hang on a second here. Don't associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, he's a reviler, a drunkard, a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

So you'll note, does this mean that somebody who is a penitent alcoholic is not welcome in our fellowship?

No, if they're a practicing and penitent alcoholic, making excuses and blaming everybody else for their alcoholism, then we've got a problem.

And you'll note that church discipline is for the purpose of their soul being saved. You know, we've lost sight of the fact that one of the most loving things you can do for a person is confront them with their sin and rebuke them and call them to repentance.

But if I say that, they're going to get mad at me. Yeah, that's, let's be honest, that's gonna happen.

But when our kids were little, did we have any problems confronting them when they stepped out of line?

No, none whatsoever, none, okay? How is it any different?

And the reality is is that we learn, we learn when people love us enough to say, hey, listen, what you're doing is sinful.

You need to repent. This is how we learn. And the person telling that to us loves us, whereas the people who are afraid to say the truth, is that love or is that cowardice?

Yeah, something to consider. All right, coming back to our text then. All right, so she's teaching people this prophetess, teaching people to commit sexual immorality, offer food sacrifice to idols.

And so Christ says, I gave her time to repent. Notice Christ's mercy even for this false prophetess.

Christ gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Yeah, sexual immorality in the name of Jesus, that doesn't make any sense.

So as a result of this, behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed. Those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works.

I will strike her children dead. Whoa, and all the churches will know that I am,

I am he. I wanna see something. Yeah, ego e me, that I am. And see, hate ego e me here.

I'm not sure why the ESV says that I am he. I think it's a bad translation because this should just be

I am, all caps. And then all the churches will know that I am.

And that's the name of God given in Exodus 3. He who searches the mind and the heart,

I will give to each one according to your works. And you're gonna note here, are we not saved by grace through faith?

Yes, we are. Are we not rewarded according to our works?

Yes, we are. Keep that in mind, all right?

Because in Colossians 2, it makes it clear that the record of debt that stood against us has been canceled, nailed to the cross.

So none of your sins, if you are a penitent believer in Christ, none of your sins are gonna be brought up on the day of judgment.

When Jesus opens up the book, it's a completely marred book because half of the thing is gone.

The only thing in your book, what's recorded there are your good works.

All of your sins are bled for, died for, atoned. The record of debt has been canceled and nailed to the cross.

So I will give to each one according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you

I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. So you'll note that whoever this

Jezebel woman was, she didn't teach this stuff to everybody. There was a secret group that were learning all of this stuff from her.

So hold fast to what you have until I come, the one who conquers, who keeps my works until the end.

To him I will give authority over the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my

Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the

Spirit says to the churches. Now, let me check questions here because going on to the next letter does not make sense today because I cannot do it justice.

So we're kind of getting to a point where it makes sense to stop. And so I need to check the chat window for questions.

Okay, Chris. All right, so we used to pick the dandelion leaves and eat them in a salad.

You know, Lewis, that's okay. I am convinced that my wife is putting dandelion leaves in our current salad because those are edible.

Okay, so you can do that. Okay, but I don't think you want to eat the dandelion leaves out of my yard because of the herbicides that I've laid down there.

It'll probably cause cancer or make a third hand to grow out of your forehead. So. Yeah, and yeah, okay.

They're supposed to be good for circulation, but they are bitter. Okay, Roger says, Chris, repent for your little

Calvinist circle. Roger, I won't tell

Phil Johnson if you don't. I think it's mandatory from time to time that I take a swipe at them.

Anyway, I tell that to Kenneth Copeland. Yeah, good point. Liberal, these days it means you can have any opinion or thought you want as long as it agrees with mine.

Yeah, that's kind of how that goes nowadays. Calumny. Yep. There's a scripture about when we are reviled to revile not again.

Yeah, Laura, there is. When we revile, we bless. When we're reviled, we bless. That's what the scripture tells us to do.

So Ferdie asks, can sexual immorality be likened to spiritual immorality such as idol worship, referring to this passage?

Okay, so Ferdie, in this particular passage, the one that I read, it was specifically referring to, so 1

Corinthians is specifically dealing with physical sexual immorality, but you'll note that the

Jezebel reference in Revelation that we read has a spiritual component to it.

I would say that if you want to develop out the thought that there is a correct way in which you can compare idolatry to sexual immorality, and you would use passages from the

Old Testament to do that. And let's just say that in some of the prophets of the

Old Testament, the language that the prophets use are, they're like rated

R in describing idolatry in terms of sexual immorality.

For instance, the prophet Ezekiel and there's parts of that, if you're reading the

Bible to your kids, skip it. Just don't read Ezekiel to your small kids.

I'm just saying, because you'll have a lot of explaining to do. You may have that birds and bees conversation a little sooner than you wanted if you read

Ezekiel to your kids. But Ezekiel is like the quintessential example of using sexually explicit imagery and adultery as the metaphor for idolatry.

So the answer is yes. So physical adultery is likened to spiritual adultery, which is idolatry.

The two go hand in hand. They are kind of like the same sin, just on different sides or different tables of the law.

That's a good way to put it. Okay, let's see. Can sexual immorality be...

Okay, okay, referring to this passage. Okay, thanks for that. Okay, good, Ferdy, I'm glad that that helped you. All right, starting to look a little bit more like Kongsvinger around here and I'm glad that we have all y 'all joining us.

And so I'm beginning to wonder if we're a bunch of pandemic rebels or something here.

I'm just thinking, MacArthur has made the news, but Roseboro, I don't want to.

Because I'm pretty sure that if they threw me in jail, there would be certain faction making sure that I stayed there.