To Ephesus Write...

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John, you'll open us up a little order for him? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for just who you are,
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Lord, and who you revealed us to be, and our need for repentance, and our need for coming to faith,
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Lord. Just thank you for that. Lord, as we gather today and we open up the scriptures, we just ask that you be with my
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Lord, that you guide his words, guide his thinking, his wisdom, to really just open up your word and exposit it in a way that truly does you honor.
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Lord, we ask all this through your son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Let's open our
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Bibles to Revelation chapter 2. We're just going to read verses 1 -7, because that's probably where we'll finish up Church of Ephesus today.
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Good morning. It says, To the angel of the church in Ephesus' right, the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this,
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I know your deeds, your toil, your perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men.
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You put to test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you have found them to be false.
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You have perseverance, and have endured for my name's sake, and have not grown weary.
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But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else
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I will come to you, and will remove the lampstand out of its place, unless you repent. Yet this you do have, that you hate the deed to the
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Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the
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Spirit says to the churches. And to him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
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So last week, we started the letter to the church at Ephesus, and we learned that this was a church that was to be praised for their deeds.
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Remember last week, we said that they had toiled, and what does toil mean? It doesn't just mean to labor, it means almost to labor to the point of exhaustion.
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And that's what this church did, and not only did they do good deeds, and did they toil, we saw that they persevered.
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And what do you remember last week from when we talked about their perseverance? Remember when Paul went to Ephesus, what did they persevere while they were there?
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We read in Acts, I think it was Acts chapter 19, what were they dealing with? Anybody remember? Who said it?
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What's that? They believed, but when they got to Ephesus, they were also persevering, dealing with the idolatry in Ephesus.
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Remember, what was one of the seven wonders of the world, anybody remember the temple that was there?
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I'll take either name, Diana or Artemis, same thing. And they were dealing with the false teaching that come out of that, a riot broke out, then they wind up after Paul being there for three years, or two years after being there, people were bringing in books, and all their idolatry idols, and they were burning them.
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And it says it came up to some 50 ,000 shekels. So we learned that they persevered, and that they endured very tumultuous times at that.
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And you've got to remember too, Ephesus was, and we'll look at all three of them as we go through, but Ephesus was, it wasn't the provincial capital of Asia Minor, but it was the political capital.
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I mean, all dignitaries, when they were to come through, they had to, if they were going to come through Asia Minor, they had to check in at Ephesus.
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So it was a wealthy city, not only was it a wealthy city because of that reason, but because it was on a port as well.
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Anything that has a port, that's where textiles and industry and all of that kind of stuff is going to come in.
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So we saw that they persevered. Then what else did they do? It says that they put those who called themselves apostles and found out they were not.
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Well, how did they do that? How were they able to test to see if they were apostles?
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Holding up what they were saying in the scriptures. Yeah, holding up the only scripture that they have, which would have been the
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Old Testament, is what they're saying consistent with what we already know. And at this time, they would have already had the letter from Paul.
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So they would have been able to hold up what Paul had written to them to hold them to a standard and say, hey man, these guys are jag legs.
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They're not real. And then he said that they found them to be false, put them out, and they endured for his name's sake.
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They did not grow weary. And then it said here, we got to this point, it says that they had left their first love.
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And last week, we talked about how you and I, we know if we have left our first love.
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Do we not? You can look at your own life. You can look at yourself in the mirror, put the word of God up in front of you.
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Is my life consistent with what the scripture says? I don't think there's anybody in this room that you could say, man,
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I know my deeds. They're good. Man, I've toiled for the word of God and in evangelism to the point to where I'm exhausted.
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Anybody in here want to say that? Okay. Does anybody in here want to say, hey man, we didn't tolerate any evil people?
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I don't think any of us would say that either. And how many of us would say that we have persevered to the point of exhaustion?
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I don't think anybody. That's why I am firmly convinced that this church was unaware of what
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Jesus was saying to them. Okay? I don't think they knew this. You and I do, because we can look at our own life.
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They're looking at the church as a whole. How they were functioning. And they could, and Jesus says, wait a minute, you've got all these things which look good on the exterior, but now
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I'm going to take that in his eyes and he's going to peer into the heart and he's going to see, hey man, this ain't really what you think it is.
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And he could find out that their motives were not pure. Take your Bible and turn over to 1
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Timothy. We came to an agreement somewhat last week that Paul probably planted the church at Ephesus somewhere between 52 and 54.
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I believe some of you guys may disagree and that's fine on your dating. I think that 1
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Timothy was probably written around 61, 62. Okay? So we're talking maybe 10 years later,
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Paul writes this letter to Timothy in verse 1 of chapter 1. He says,
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Paul, an apostle according to Jesus Christ and the commandment of God, our savior and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope.
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To Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the
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Father and of Jesus Christ, our Lord, as I urge you upon my departure from Macedonia.
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Here's what he says. He says, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.
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So here it is, some 10 years later, this is Paul writing to Timothy. Where is he telling him to stay?
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At the church at Ephesus. That's what he's telling him to do. And he's telling him already, again, based on what we did know when the church was planted, you're going to instruct men to not teach strange doctrines.
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What did it say already? That they put out those who were teaching falsely, found them to be false apostles.
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He says, nor pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to more speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith.
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But the goal of our instructions, and here it is, the goal of our instructions is this, love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
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So Paul already, in 61 or 62, addressing the mouthpiece to the church of Ephesus, which would have been
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Timothy, hey, you're going to have to do what you do with a heart of pure love.
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So now, fast forward, I believe that the letter to the church at Ephesus was written before 67, okay?
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Not long, Jesus is addressing the same thing Paul did and Timothy did.
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So the question is, was Timothy still there? Was Timothy still the pastor of that church, quote, if we want to say that?
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I say yes. I say, I believe that Timothy was still there, and why do I believe that? Well, if you flip over to 2
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Timothy, that was written between 62 and 64, I'm sorry, between 64 and 66, 1
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Timothy 61, 62, somewhere around there, then between 64 and 66 is when 2
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Timothy is written, and he's telling Timothy to do the same thing. Timothy, you need to stay the course.
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Put away evil men. Don't let them bring in these strange doctrines. Don't continue to let false teachers come in.
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Preach the word. Be ready to do it in season and out of season. So, here it is, they have been instructed by Paul, with apostolic authority, when he planted the church, it was there three years, don't do these things, now, with two letters from Paul to Timothy, as Timothy being the mouthpiece to the church, hey, don't do these things, and it almost as if they weren't listening, because now we're at 66, 67 when the book of Revelation was written, and now, hey, this is no longer an apostle speaking, who's speaking to the church of Ephesus now?
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This is Christ. Hey, you've only got seven, there's only seven letters of dictation in all of the
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Bible that came from the mouth and the lips of Christ that were written down, and these are it, and he says the same thing, the same thing.
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We know that the church of Ephesus was a good church, okay? We know they had good deeds. We know that they did all of these things, but what they were doing wasn't doing it out of a heart of pure love, and Jesus says, look, you've got to fix that.
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Now, back over to Revelation, as Timothy probably began to address these things, maybe,
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I'm just going to use what we already know about Timothy from the scriptures, maybe Timothy became timid with the men in the church.
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Anybody know what we do know about Timothy? He was younger. What did he tell them?
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Don't let them despise you. He tells them in 2 Timothy, he says, don't let them despise you of your young age, and we know also,
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I think it's in 1 Corinthians around 16, I think it is, about midway through, he tells them,
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I'm sending Timothy to you, and don't you all be hard on him and cause him to have me fear of you.
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So what do we know about Timothy? He was timid, and he also was told by Paul, don't have a spirit of timidity.
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Don't be scared. Don't let them despise you of your young. So was Timothy faithfully preaching the word at Ephesus, and maybe these people not listening to that correction because they were looking at all of the external things that they were doing?
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Putting out bad people, fixing a strange doctrine, doing good deeds, evangelizing, persevering.
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Good possibility. Very good possibility that the church of Ephesus was hearing this because they had not heeded the teaching of Paul and of Timothy.
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And he says, but because you have left your first love, and he says, remember where you fall. Then repent. Remember just last week.
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Remember, repent, return. Those are the three things. Remember what? Remember where you were at from the first time, the things that you did at first.
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And he says, or I'm going to come and knock your lights out. That's how I understand that. What was the lamp stand?
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It was the light. And he says, look, if you don't do what I tell you to do, I'm going to come knock your lights out. That's all.
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I mean, there's really no easier way to understand it. I'm going to come. I'm going to remove the very thing that I have placed to be a glowing light in this city in a place of darkness, idolatry.
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I'm going to remove it. And he says here, he says in verse six, yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the
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Nicolaitans, which I hate or also hate. Now what were those deeds?
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We're not real sure. Before we can figure out what those deeds are, we've got to figure out who are the
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Nicolaitans. We don't already know much about them. There's a lot of speculation about who they are.
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Between the words you have, the word nikao, which means to conquer, overcome, and laos, which means the people.
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Those are two Greek words they put together to mean Nicolaitans, and it sounds evil, like Niko, laos,
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Nicolaitans. You know? So okay, that whatever they're doing, Jesus hates it.
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Now did it have to do with conquering the people? That's what I have heard. The guy that I planted a church with in 2009, he says, oh no, because he taught through the book of Revelation before we left the church we were at to plant.
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And he says, no, this has to do with this. This is the, they were just conquering the people, whoever this person was.
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Okay, that really doesn't, you're just taking that word and making an assessment.
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I'm beginning to look more into, okay, well, who is, is there somebody historically that we can look at that may be this pointed to?
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I don't know this. I'm just telling you what history has said through the church fathers.
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Irenaeus. We've already spoken of quite a bit already, and if you've been in the church history with Keith on, on Sunday nights, he has brought up Irenaeus as well.
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He was a, a student of Polycarp, and who was Polycarp a student of? John. Okay.
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So we're, we are almost two generations away. He said that this
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Irenaeus, I mean that Irenaeus said that this, the leader of the Nicolaitans was a man by the name of Nicholas, who was spoken of in scripture.
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You're going to turn your Bibles over to Acts chapter six. He was one of the deacons. Yes, that's, and that's where, we're talking about tradition.
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Remember what they were having issues with, hey, I've got to turn that AC on. I feel like the
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Holy Ghost of Fire is up here, burning up.
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So they, they were, well, you remember in Acts chapter six what the deal was?
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They, they needed some people to help serve tables. The Hellenistic, there was a, just like there always has been, you have a schism between the two types of Jews, the traditional and the
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Hellenistic, and the Hellenistic were the ones that had been basically Greekized, okay? And it says that they needed them to, to help serve the tables, and it says, but,
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I'm going to start back in verse three, 6 -3,
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Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put to the charge of this task.
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That task was to basically feed the, do the tables, but we will devote ourselves, this is the elders of the church, the apostles, we'll devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
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The statement, found approval with the whole congregation, and they chose
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Stephen, a man full of faith, in the Holy Spirit, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, or Timon, I never even pronounced that,
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Peramanus, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. So what do we know about Nicholas?
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All we know is he's a proselyte from Antioch, okay? Now, that to Irenaeus, and some of the other church fathers say that this man, who was a, a person that would serve in the church, in Acts chapter 6, doing the tables,
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I don't believe this is the deacons, okay? It's kind of a, we're reading into that a later thing.
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I think that this is a, they had a specific reason, they called these men to, to do that.
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But look at the qualifications. These guys had to be full of the Spirit. These, from all means and purposes, these were godly men, right?
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Right. Well, Irenaeus says that he began to go off into some type of schism, some type of idolatry, he began to lead people astray, and led them off.
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Now, could, that could be true about this man, okay?
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It could. If he was at the church event, I just want you to just follow my train of thought before you throw something at me, follow my train of thought, if, when
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Paul was fixing, he called the elders of the church of Ephesus together, I think it's in Acts chapter 20, remember he gives them a farewell speech, he says,
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I'm going to Jerusalem, I don't know what awaits for me, I'm gonna go. And as I leave, he said, there's gonna be, remember, we talked about this last week, there's gonna be people that are coming in, they're gonna be wolves, ravenous wolves are gonna come in and try to hurt you.
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He said, but then he says a statement in there, but there's some elders right here within you that are gonna draw men away.
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Now, I don't know if Nico was there, okay? I don't know. Could be.
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We don't know. That's all we know about him. That's all we know is what Irenaeus has said and some of the other church fathers who were two generations away.
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Does it make logical sense? Yes, it does. But we don't know.
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We don't. Let's go again. One of the things that, hey, the last thing I'm gonna say, I don't know, but what was his teachings?
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That we're not sure of either. We draw, we make deductions based on another church that is spoken of later in the book.
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It sounds that as he was approving of eating food offered to idols and sexual immorality.
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He said, well, wait a minute. Paul already told us there was nothing wrong with eating food offered to idols.
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Did Paul say that? Yep. So understand that it's not just eating the food offered to idols.
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Look, we're not talking about being at Zeus' steakhouse, okay, one of the temples. They go to Zeus' steakhouse or whatever to get a steak or they offer an offering up to Zeus or whomever, whatever the pagan idol they're going to see.
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They offer that meat offered up. Paul was talking about that meat going out the back door and then be sold in the market, right?
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That's what Paul was talking about. That's not what they're talking about here. He's talking about going into these places of idolatry and eating and immorality.
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Why was immorality? You may know why the immorality was connected to the food offered to idols.
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You may not? Because of the temple prostitutes? Temple prostitutes. So, and we'll talk about this maybe not in the next one, but in the
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Pergama, we'll get more into it. So when you, you had people that would travel all over.
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If you didn't have a local temple for this pantheon of gods that they bowed down and worshipped to, whether it was the imperial cult, and we'll talk about that at some point, you had, whether it was
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Asclepius, Zeus, Diana, any of these other,
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Desidorius, any of these other pagan gods that they bowed down to and offered oblations to, they would go in, they would offer this meat to them, or whatever the offering was, a sacrifice, and then it was, you were supposed to then make out, as an act of worship, with a temple prostitute.
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Okay? So if you traveled all this way, you came in to do your thing, that's what you did.
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Well, these people lived in that city. They were not just going there, hey, we're hungry, we want a good steak.
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Now where was the best steak going to be? Susan's Steakhouse. Huh? Yeah. Yeah, it was going to be, or Asclepius' Snake and Staff Steakhouse.
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So what did they do? They went in there, they did their thing, hey, hang out with some guys, women, hey don't think that women, there wasn't male prostitutes there either, so you don't think you women get a pass, okay?
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There was prostitution, they would go in, they would eat, do their thing, make nefarious deals, and then top the night off after that with a prostitute.
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That's what we understand from what Nicholas, or whoever this cat was, was doing.
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Yeah, I know, I remember reading Matthew Henry's commentary, I don't know where he got it from, but he held too, that Nicholas had an antinomian view on sanctification, so it was like, say, and then you get to live how you want to.
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I don't really know where he got that from. Well, honestly, from the church fathers. Okay. It is amazing how much stuff
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I am, anybody knows how I study? I want primary sources. I don't care what, no,
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I think it's Matthew Henry, I don't care what Matthew Henry says. No offense. Okay? Don't care. I want to know where Matthew Henry got what he said, and then
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I want to know where that guy that Matthew Henry got it from got it from where he said, and then I want to know where that guy got it from where he said, and you just start following that.
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I want primary sources, and the only place that we can find right now, look, I don't have exhaustive knowledge of all things.
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Irenaeus is where I see it. Just, I mean, you've talked about this one time before. You know, the
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Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 passages being about Satan.
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You know what? That started with the church fathers, was imported that this is authoritative talking about the fall of Satan.
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You know where that started? It started with church fathers, and it just passed on. Sounds good. Sounds good. Well, I mean, if you read those passages, it ain't who it's talking about.
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It's talking about the fall of the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre. So, when you start following that, you want to know what are the primary sources.
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Where did it originate? It obviously didn't originate with Irenaeus, because it had to come from him, but the first person that I could find it started with was
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Irenaeus. Whomever it is, whoever this Nicholas, Nicolaitans, Nicolai, just sounds evil, don't it?
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Whoever it is, he did evil things. He tried to pull away the people of God, not only from the church at Ephesus and the surrounding areas, and other churches too.
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So, this was a wider spread teaching. This wasn't a localized cult. This was some teaching that had spread, which would lead to more merit that maybe it was
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Nicholas from, because he was very influential within the church. Right. I mean, this guy ends up in Pergamum, and he says, hey man,
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I was one of the guys chosen by the apostles. Does that not give him...
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Credit. Yeah. Yeah, it gives him some credit. Yeah, hey man, they're going to listen to me.
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And certainly, I believe it was Antinomian holding a... Did you raise your hand? Yes. Yes, ma 'am. So, how does
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Acts 6 .3 apply to Nicholas? Does that apply to him? As in being full of the
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Spirit? Full of the Spirit and all those things. When they were... Let's don't read what has happened down here back into when they chose them 40 years earlier.
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Maybe longer than that. When they were at the church in Jerusalem, and they needed help, they said, hey, find men that are qualified, full of the
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Spirit. What would full of the Spirit mean? Did it mean they were running around speaking in tongues? No, it meant men that from all means and purposes from the external were men that were been set apart by the
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Holy Spirit, had been saved, and beginning were being sanctified. Now, the question goes, if this
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Nicholas is the guy we're talking about, did he fall away? No doubt. If who we're talking about in the book of Revelation, the leader of the
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Nicolaitans, his teachings, if it is the Nicholas from chapter 6 of Acts, did he fall away?
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Yes. Did he lose his salvation? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, I don't understand how it applies to him because it's the men who are filled with the
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Spirit. Full of the Spirit. So I'm wondering how that could be him. From the external.
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Yes. They're looking at, hey, this person of all means and purposes from the external is a believer.
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Let's take Demas. I had some time yesterday morning waiting for the door to dry in between codes.
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I read through all the pastoral epistles yesterday. Okay? Oh, not Corinthians, but all the...
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And if you read them in order in which they were written, you're going to see that Demas was persecuted with Paul.
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But what happened to Demas? He fell away. But by all means and purposes, we'd have thought that Demas was full of the
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Spirit. Would we not? Yes. But what happened? He left for this present world. And yesterday was the first time it registered.
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I can't tell you how many times I've read it. You know where he went back to? Where they tried to kill Paul, and Paul had to be let out through a basket out a window.
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Thessalonica. Remember, Paul had to leave there because they were going to kill him. He was only there for three
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Sabbaths, whether it was two weeks or whatever it is. Paul had to get out of there. Where did Demas go? He went back to Thessalonica.
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So that means not only did he walk away from the faith, he was going back to the very place that he was associated with Paul as preaching.
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Now, are there others that we can say, by all means and purposes, look like they were believers on the external?
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Yeah. What about Simon the Magus? Remember? Who baptized him?
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Philip. He looked like he was a believer. But when Peter showed up, what did
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Peter tell him? He said, you're full of bitterness and gall, and God's going to destroy you if you don't repent.
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So, we're looking at their confessions of faith, how they were functioning within the church, and then if it is this guy, which we don't know, okay?
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We really don't. We're only going on what tradition says. Then he fell away for whatever reason.
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Was it to become more synchronistic and to say, hey,
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I'm going to ride both sides of the fence? I can appeal to the
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Roman idolatry and to the church, you know? The Church of Corinth had those issues too.
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The Church of Corinth was doing a lot of the same things. It sounds like that Paul was rebuking the
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Corinthian church. It almost sounds like that's kind of what the Nicolaitan teaching was.
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But Paul had already rebuked him. You can't do this. You can't be joined to a whore and be joined to Christ.
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That's what he said. You can't be both. Well, Nicholas says, hey, you can.
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Yeah, you can. I do mind. Of course not.
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I think this is where sometimes it would almost be easier to hold, like, a
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Lutheran view or an Arminian view of once saved, always saved, what we call eternal security.
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It's the same thing. Because it's easier to see and think, well, this person was filled with the
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Spirit and now they're not, right? Like this person was saved and now they're not. But when we take a Calvinistic or Baptist view of somebody, if they're not saved now, they were never saved, that becomes more difficult.
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Even now when we see somebody who was a teacher who did so many good things and then they fall away or do something incredibly heinous like we've seen recently, when you think, well, was he ever saved?
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That's the first question people ask, right? Because as a Baptist we hold if he's not saved now, he was never saved. And that's where that really becomes.
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It would be easier to be Lutheran. It would be easier to be able to say, yeah, he was saved, but now he's not. Because that's what they believe. They believe he was legitimately saved, legitimately filled with the
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Spirit, and somehow that left him. I'll be honest with you. In my favorite book everybody here knows me, favorite book is
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Hebrews. It would be easier to believe in a book of Hebrews. They lost their salvation. Yeah. That is easiest. And I will be honest.
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I know they were partakers of the Holy Spirit. If we go to Hebrews 6, it says, hey, these men who once were enlightened were partakers of the
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Holy Spirit. They had all the gifts. They partook in all the gifts and all of the blessings of being with people of God in the
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Holy Spirit. And then if they turn away, it's impossible for them to be renewed in repentance. I don't know about y 'all.
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That sounds like the man lost to salvation. But when we look at the totality of Scripture, what is it teaching?
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The totality of Scripture says, hey, man, once God sets somebody apart, they're going to persevere to the end. They won't fall away.
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Okay? They won't fall away. So what we look at, if this Nicholas person is him, he by all means and purposes would have been one that either the seed of the gospel fell on shallow ground, sprung up for a little while.
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He was with the body. You've got to remember, man, I don't know about y 'all, but when you see a new movement, man, it's fun.
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Okay? You don't think it was pretty cool to see the church growing in Jerusalem?
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See all these things going on. Man, people coming. You know, the nice new community that loved one another.
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Nutter. Another doing all these things. Man, that would have been awesome to be a part of.
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People sometimes are attached to that. Same thing for Simon the Magician. What did he want? He wanted the miraculous gifts and was willing to pay for them.
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In a sense, it really relates to even what he's talking to the Ephesus church about, which is you've got a lot of these works, and if you don't repent and do the works you did at first and come back to your first love,
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I'm going to take the lampstand out. It is related in a way. He's kind of giving that example. Like you said, if this is all right with Nicholas and all that stuff, it's a good example of, hey, go back to your first love.
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And what does that look like? Right. What does that look like? That's a good question. You're describing how exciting it can be.
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It reminded me, Keith, of Mars Hill. What is it? Yeah, Mars Hill.
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Driscoll. Driscoll. It kind of reminded me of that because that was a big movement. But, man, those guys, there's a big old long podcast you can listen to about the whole ordeal that happened.
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And it was like exactly what you're talking about. It was like a movement. Nobody was excited about it. But there was a lot of faults.
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Yeah, so are they following a movement which all means and purposes looked as if it was a legitimate conversion?
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But then, I mean, look, I know men that were following that whole thing, and, dude, they're not even in church anymore. Okay, so I understand.
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I remember, and if I said his name, some of you would know who I'm talking about. This guy came to me and said, Mike, I can't believe you don't like this guy.
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I was like, dude, I just don't like the way he preaches. I don't like his deliverance. This was long before any of that happened.
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I just don't like the guy. It's interesting that a vast majority of teachers that that person used to listen to, who
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I'm talking about, you know what they've done? They've fallen. And it's called irreversible damage to the people of God.
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There was no true repentance. There was no. Yeah, it was all external.
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You know, want people to follow you. Want somebody to not follow Christ but follow you.
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Look, I don't want to make disciples of Mike. Andy doesn't want to make disciples of Andy.
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Keith doesn't want to make disciples. We want to make disciples of Christ. And y 'all can call me out if my life is inconsistent with the way that the
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Scripture says. That's fine. Call me out. I don't want the self -proclaimed president of the
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Sinister Difference Association to follow me around because, dude, I'm a sinner, okay? But what
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I am saying is this. If I live my life in a pattern that's not consistent with the
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Word of God, hey, I could be just like that church. I can't see. Look, I'm on this side looking out.
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You're on this side looking in. Dude, we all have blinders. We all don't see.
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And we sometimes need those who are closest to us to say, hey, this is wrong.
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This is wrong. Sure. So I'm thinking about what it says in 2
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Peter where it talks about false teachers and it says, If after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
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For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
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But it has happened to them, according to the true proverb, a dog returns from his own vomit, and a sow, having watched, to a wallowing in the mire.
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It would have been better off for them to never have made that profession. And that makes it more damnable, if that's even a real term.
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It makes it more damnable because now, they saw the light. They saw the light.
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They saw the people of God working and they saw what was going on. And it's not like they were walking around like this and never saw.
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They saw and then went, You know what? I don't care. And I'm going to take that blindfold back on and I'm going to stick it back on and I'm going to walk another direction.
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It says, based on what you just read, that it would have been better off for them to have never have made that profession of faith.
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Well, let's move on and we'll get to something that's a little more controversial than even what you said. No, no, no, for real.
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Wait a second. It gets worse as we go through these letters. These ain't that easy.
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And it says, Let him who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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Once again, when we were talking, I forgot, there was a number of us talking in a morning and one afternoon for the academy.
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You didn't realize these letters were written to every church. Right here, the first letter says,
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Let him who has ears hear what the Spirit says, not to the church, to the churches.
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So he's speaking to all of them. Then he says, To him who overcomes,
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I will grant him to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. What about those that don't overcome? So now is salvation conditional?
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Somebody want to answer that? That's what it says. To him who overcomes,
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I will grant him to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Where do we see the tree of life?
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What's that? Where do we see it in after that? What's that? Yeah, that's it.
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It's two bookends. It started here, poof, gone. Now it appears again.
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Tree of life. And it says, He who overcomes, God's going to give him. Well, what about those that don't?
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And what does it mean to overcome? Does overcome mean, Hey, man, we're going to be these guys who got a stiff upper lip, we're going to be some of the few, some of the proud, some of the many.
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Is that what this is talking about? Then what are overcomers? They're true believers.
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You look at Romans and, you know, Romans ain't, you know, to those who are foreknown are predestined.
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Those who are predestined are... Are going to be conformed. Right. Yeah, so you see there is, there's a progression, which is progressive sanctification.
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I hate the word progressive sometimes because anything progressive should be, should be skeptical about.
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But progressive sanctification means our sanctification is going this way. Now, sometimes it's like this, but it's moving, and it's moving toward the goal, and that goal is to be more conformed in the image of the
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Son. So in this case, an overcomer is anyone who has placed faith in Christ and not persevered to obtain salvation, but will persevere because of salvation.
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Because Christ has saved us, we will persevere. Because, does that look the same with everybody?
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Does it? I don't know. I don't know about y 'all, man. Sometimes it's hard, and sometimes we don't always persevere like we should.
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Me and Sylvan, we went to Oxford. We went to where Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake.
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Stood, went to the little window, sat where he looked across, and watched his friends get burned at the stake.
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Okay? Thomas Cranmer. He recanted as he watched the men burn.
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Watched from that little window, watched his two friends burn. Did that mean that man lost his salvation then?
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No, because he later then recanted of his recantation and says, hey, whichever hand that I, which hand was it that I assigned that recantation?
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And they said it was this hand here, and he stuck that hand in the fire and burned it off.
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He says, that's for offending my Savior. Now, that leads to what we'll get to more as we go through the letters, is lapses.
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Do you remember we talked about this a few weeks ago? What a lapse was? Anybody remember? And I'm talking about running laps in here.
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But what a lapse was, it was those who, under severe persecution, said, hey,
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I'm going this way. They lapsed. Does a person lapse mean they lost their salvation?
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It's a good question. Go ahead. Tonight in class, we're going to be talking about innovationists, and then next week, hedonists, which both had a deal.
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It was about lapsing during the DCM, or the DCM... Persecution.
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Persecution in 250, and then the great persecution in 311, I think it was. Yep. So both of those have to do with what you're talking about.
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Yeah, because the persecution was really bad from 249, from 249 to 313.
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It was really bad. I mean, I say bad, I'm talking about really bad. We're talking about, was there...
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And we've got to get ready to start wrapping it up. We'll get more into this when we get to Pergamos, actually next week when we get to Smyrna.
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Was there imperial cult worship? Yes. I want you to understand, yes. There was.
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But it wasn't mandated or compulsatory by the Roman Empire yet.
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It wasn't until Decius, he made an edict of compulsory in 249 and says, if you don't bow down, to the bust, when it comes riding through the city with the chariot and the incense, you'll be put to death.
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You'll be thrown to the lions. You'll be whatever they've decided to do to you at the arena, take you to the
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Colosseum, let you get beat with battle axes or whatever. That didn't happen until 249. And then it was very bad from then up until 313, which would have been the
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Edict of Toleration, which came down from Constantine, which then said it was no longer legal to persecute
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Christians. Sorry, I just took part of your class. This is a commercial.
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They should all come. Yeah, and we often take that 249
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Edict, okay? And we read that back into, that was what was happening in the time of Christ.
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It was not. Were there temples made to Caesar Augustus? Yes, there were.
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Were there temples made to Tiberius? He was the one that would have been around when actually he was the emperor when
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Christ was crucified. Were there? Yes, these men got deified. Was there one that would be later made to Vespasian?
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Yes. Were there temples made for Domitian, although it was knocked down? Yes. Were there ones made later on for Trahan?
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Yes. Some of the most beautiful things in the Roman Empire? Yes. But it was not compulsatory.
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It wasn't. There was no emperor saying, if you don't bow down and worship me, we're going to harm you.
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That didn't happen until Decius. But there was localized issues with that. There was localized persecution.
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How do you think? Well, I don't want to get into that. We can do it next week because we'll get to Smyrna. Yes? I'm just, oh, yeah, go ahead.
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No, go ahead. Just to circle back to the recantation of Kramer and his double recantation,
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I guess you could call that. I guess the way I've always viewed that is you die in a state of unbelief and not following Christ, then that would mean that you were never saved.
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I don't have time to answer that, but we will next week. It's a good question because there's two ways of looking at that, and we've only got 25 seconds, and Andy prays longer than 25 seconds.
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You'll pray for us, Andy? Thank you. Father, thank you for our time together,
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Lord. Thank you for your word. Lord, it is so expansive.
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Help us to consider it in truth. Help us to be guided by you,
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Holy Spirit. And now we pray, Lord, help us in our worship that we would worship you in spirit and in truth, that you who see into the depth of our hearts would see that we love you and that we seek to worship you.