To the Church in Smyrna Pt2

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Mike Smith, will you open us up with a word of prayer? I will. Heavenly Father, we are indeed thankful that you brought us here today.
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We thank you for raising us up. Thank you for giving us not only the desire, but the ability to be able to be in your house.
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And we pray the Lord that you would bless our time as we study your word. The last who was dead and has come to life and says this,
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I know your tribulation, I know your poverty, and the blasphemy by those who say they are
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Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer.
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And behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison so that you will be tested and you will have tribulation for ten days.
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Be faithful unto death. Well, by the way you're talking, you might not get that, because it seems like it's all about you.
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And he chuckled, sort of like you did back there, and we went on about it.
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But don't think of somehow when we get to heaven, there's just going to be this crown placed on your head.
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This actually should be understood as being crowned with life. Brother, I don't want a crown in heaven. You know what
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I'm saying? Seven, we have also I will grant you to eat of the tree of life.
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So we're seeing some similarities. What would be the difference between the tree of life and the crown of life? In its application, anybody want to take a swing at that?
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Both of them are eternal life. Both of them. It's used in the book of Revelation.
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It's not a diadem. A diadem is one of royalty, of power, of authority. That's not the one that's used there.
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It's the one that will go out and conquer and wins games and overthrowing. And in this case, this is not a crown.
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The Spirit is saying, and He gives them the explanation of the soils and how as they go out, and this is right before He commissions them out to go preach,
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He gives them the soils so as they go, now this is about to happen. Remember as we walked through this last week, we saw that they were already going through tribulation.
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He says, this is what Jesus says, I know your tribulation. This isn't
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Jesus having some, you know, cognitive awareness of what's going on. This is the eyes that can peer and see all things and do everything, and He says,
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I know exactly what you're going through. I know the very pressure. Remember the word philipsis is used for tribulation.
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They're being pressed to the point of almost being crushed. He says, I know your poverty.
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And He says, the Spirit's telling you to continue on. And I don't know if anybody caught on to this last week.
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He tells them, you're about to suffer. What was the first one?
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They get the crown of life. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death. Is it one, standing with boldness and being able to face the flames in a time of polycarp?
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What is it? An overcomer is simply someone who believes.
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Simply someone who believes. 1 John 2, verse 4, I think it's verse 4 and 5, and 1
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John 4 and 1 John 5. He who overcomes is he who believes that Jesus Christ is the
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Son of God. That's what it is. Yes, sir. Excuse me, I have some trouble understanding the second death because some doctrine says that the first death will be when you get baptized and the second death will be the natural death.
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So what do we make out of that? I mean, it's just confusing. Okay, a person will die once.
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Everybody in this room will die once. We agree. It's appointed a man once to die, then the judgment.
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I know some of you may be thinking, so if anybody don't get snarky with me afterwards, and say, well, there are going to be some people alive when
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Jesus returns. Okay, that is true. There will be some people alive when
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Jesus returns, and they will not see death. He will split that eastern sky, the dead in Christ will rise first, and there will be a very few.
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But I can assure you it's probably nobody in this room. We're probably all going to die.
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The vast majority. Yes, sir. You ready, Jan? The best way to explain that is to understand that we go to the basis where you talked about the second death again.
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So the second part, we get more explanations in Revelation 20. In Revelation 20, what we see, the second death is what the lake of fire is.
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Yeah. So that's how you can understand the second death. You have to look at where that phrase is being used elsewhere.
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And as long as it's the same concept or the same what they call lemma, you can say, okay, this is the meaning that it has, and not to put it to our brothers who might have the dispensational meaning that they think is the second death has to do with the crazy charts that they're putting.
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Yes. It's like, unfortunately, anything that a boy is suffering, everything that a boy is overcoming is contradicting the book of Revelation.
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So if you have that preconceived notion that you're going to avoid suffering by being taken away, that is going against completely what
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John said in Revelation. So the second death is in Revelation 20 and also
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Revelation 21. You can see that. Yeah, you're not going to be extracted from suffering, okay?
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And I'm just going to let you know if you think that you can be saved by just enduring suffering.
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That's not true. You're saved by one way only, and that's by believing in the
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Son of God, Jesus Christ. Now, the second death is the final judgment where every liar, every immoral person, every unclean thing is cast into the lake of fire.
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That is eternal condemnation, eternal punishment forever. That is the second death.
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You either die once, live twice, or you live once and die twice.
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That's the easy way of looking at it. It has nothing to do with regeneration. It has nothing to do with losing salvation.
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None of that. Okay? None of that. Okay? We good? Now, to overcome.
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Like I said, how many times it's used in the writings of John is amazing.
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And those of you that have preached or have the desire, sometimes you're reading your
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Bible and you come across a passage and you go, man, I would just love to preach those passages.
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We have seven passages in here where we are told to overcome. We are told to overcome.
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We are told to be faithful until the end. We are told to look forward to what is ahead if we remain faithful.
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Now, that certainly seems conditional. When you go back up, it says, he who overcomes, and to the message to Ephesus, he who overcomes
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I will grant him the eat of the tree of life. That sounds conditional. And it is.
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And you go to the end of Smyrna, he who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.
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It is. It's conditional. But let's don't take the promise, okay, and turn it into a threat.
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I think that's what we often do. Well, what if I don't? What if I'm not faithful to the end?
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That is a good question to ask. What if you're not faithful to the end? I'll give you the systematic theology answer.
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The systematic theology answer is it will prove that you were not truly a believer, not that you have somehow lost your salvation.
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That's the systematic answer. But don't take the bite out of what it's saying. This is a promise.
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You remain faithful, and you remain faithful to the end. You keep believing. You keep trusting.
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You keep obeying. There is a goal that is set. There is a reward that's set for you which is being crowned with life.
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Paul in 2 Timothy, as he is basically writing his swan song to Timothy, his protege, he says he has fought the good fight.
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He has kept the faith. He's about to finish the race. Look, if you don't remain faithful to the end, you will not see heaven, okay?
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Oh, Mike, you sound like that's works -based salvation. Nope. That's just how the
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Scripture says it. Anybody want to argue with Jesus when He says those who are faithful to the end will be saved?
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You want to argue with His words? He said it. He said it in the Olivet Discourse. He says, look, only those who remain faithful will make it.
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Those to the end will be saved. That's how it should be understood. You're to remain faithful.
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That should keep you between those two ditches, keep you funneled straight on the straight and narrow.
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Look, my commands by Scripture are to remain faithful.
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That's to obey His word. Now, are we going to obey perfectly? No. Does God require perfect obedience?
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Yep. He does. But our perfect obedience, it's not how we're saved.
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He demands perfect obedience, but He knows that we're not. Now, that doesn't give us a way out, doesn't say, okay, well,
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He knows that I'm not going to obey. I might as well not. That is an attitude of rebellion.
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But we are all going to be judged according to our works. Does anybody in here think you're not going to be judged according to your works on that last day?
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Anybody? Okay. You're not judged. The believer is not judged according to his works for salvation on that last day.
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It's judged to see whether what your motives were done were pure or not. That's what it's done. The unbeliever is going to be judged on his works.
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It says that those books will be opened. And don't think when we get to the end of Revelation when it says that the books were opened that somehow
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God had to write things down because He forgot. Okay? That's not the idea. The idea is that there is a record in His mind, however you want to understand the mind of God, that there's a record of your doings, good and bad.
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And you are going to be held in account. And He's going to be, whether for the believer, it'll be the amount of condemnation and punishment for all of eternity.
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And for the believer, it'll be the one to see what was done with pure motive and to be tested by fire and whatever's left, that will be the reward.
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And I will be, just to be quite honest, I think on that day, those things that we thought as believers was done in good motive, we're going to see that stuff torched.
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Because a lot of times, we're so self -deceived, we don't know what is in good motive or not.
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But those eyes that are a flame of fire have the ability to look into all things and see.
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It will. Oh, yeah. Well, a righteous man falls seven times, but he gets up. Look, we're not saying that the sanctification model...
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Our sanctification is progressive. And I know progressive has a bad connotation in this day and time, but it is progressive.
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Everything that says progressive shouldn't always be suspect, okay? But our progressive sanctification is a direction towards God, but it's not this way.
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Hey, sometimes it's this way. And then it's down. And then sometimes it's up. And sometimes it feels like it's a little flat line.
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And then sometimes it may be lower than that valley than it was, you know, two, three years ago. But it's the consistent pattern.
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Are you moving towards God? Hebrews, pursue holiness, for without it, no man will see
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God. No man. Pursue it. That is a command.
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Pursue it. Now, do you pursue it in the same manner in every part of your life?
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Of course not. Of course not. But what's the command? Pursue it.
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Pursue it. Now, what do we make of the conditionality of other passages to where it looks as if...
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We'll get to a couple of them. I think it's in Philadelphia, the one...
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I'm sorry. In Asardus, where it talks about, hey, be faithful until the end.
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Your name will not be blocked out of the book of life. Think about things like that. That...
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You understand that God can speak the word and your heart will cease to beat. God can speak the word and you could cease to exist in this life.
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There should be a fear of that. Raise your hand. One of the biggest exceptions of the enemy is to make us think that the warnings in the passages of Scriptures are for the unbelievers.
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And to some point they are. But remember, every time you pick up the gospel or an epistle, the people are writing.
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And in the beginning it says who they're writing to. And they're writing to the church. They're writing to a person. They're writing to a saint.
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So we always have to remember that all those warnings are meant for us first.
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Yeah, I mean, take the book of Hebrews. Take the book of Hebrews. You take those passages. And I have taught on the four major warning passages in Hebrews.
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And we should not come to those passages and go, well, they're hypothetical. Because there is a part of that to where some people think in Hebrews that it's hypothetical.
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I say it's not hypothetical. I think you're... When you come to that presupposition to those texts, you're taking the actual terrifying threat that the
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Holy Spirit has inspired. You're removing that from the equation. Look, when it says in the book of Hebrews, if you go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for you.
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The only thing that remains for you is the terrifying indignation of a wrathful God that will consume
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His adversaries. That should scare you. And if it does not, then there's something fundamentally wrong with your heart.
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It also says for those who once have been enlightened and have tasted of the good things, tasted of the
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Holy Spirit, and then turn away, that they then have crucified the
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Son of God and trampled on the blood of His covenant, and that person cannot be renewed unto salvation or repentance.
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That's what it says. Now, I'll tell you right off the top, those passages right there,
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I ain't gonna lie, it sounds like you can lose your salvation. And I'll be honest with you, the easiest way to understand those passages is, yeah, you can.
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I'll be honest with you. Grant Osborne, Chuck Smith, all those Armenian guys, you know what?
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It's easier to believe it that way because it doesn't require you to do anything else in Scripture.
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It doesn't require you to do a systematic theology. It doesn't require you to look at the biblical theology of how those things fit together with the rest of the
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New Testament. And it's canon. And then the canon as a whole, both old and new. Okay?
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But, if we come to that conclusion and just say, hey, that's hypothetical. He's just making a statement that if it were possible.
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No, no, no. If you turn away from the once and all sacrifice that was provided for you, and you go the other way, there remains no more sacrifice for you.
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There's one sacrifice. In the book of Hebrews, it was talking about the once and all sacrifice provided by God in His Son that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away.
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That it was taken away. Like I said, he mentioned it. It's a specific context. That's the epistle to the
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Hebrews. And what were the Hebrews facing? They were facing persecution. They were facing persecution. And it was easier for them to do what?
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Hey, if I just go back to Judaism, they won't put me in prison because that's what was happening. Same thing happened in Smyrna.
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I won't be put in prison. They won't take my property. They won't seize these things.
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If I just go back to Judaism, I'll be safe. Well, he's saying if you go back, there's no coming back.
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And I think that is you turn away. You turn away, you will not make it back.
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Anybody in here know Charles Templeton? Ever heard of his name? Old evangelist.
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He actually traveled with Billy Graham. He was 22 years.
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I think it was. 22 years with Billy Graham.
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This man, 22 years, faithfully preaching the Word of God, faithfully standing up, filling stadiums, 30 ,000 full.
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That man turned away from the faith. That's hard to believe. That's hard to believe.
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You think he's going to make it? No. Was he an overcomer?
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No. He turned away from that once and all sacrifice. We have this idea that, okay, he believed.
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No, no, no, no, no. It's not believed. It's believing. This here says overcome.
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It's not overcome. It is the one. This is how if I was to translate this from the
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Greek into the English, it would be the one who is overcoming because it's actually a present participle, a present active participle.
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A participle carries the weight of a verb. I don't want to try to overwhelm you, but there's a grammatical reason why it's better translated that way.
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The main verb in verse 11 is hear. He who has an ear, let him hear.
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Hear what the Spirit is saying. It's not saying, hey, just let them words that are coming out of some man's mouth just go in over your eardrums.
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No, no, no, no. So hearing in the book, the book of Revelation, always has to do with obeying.
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Always has to do with obeying. Let him who has an ear, let him hear what the
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Spirit says to the churches, and he who is overcoming, present active participle.
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The participle carries the weight of that verb, meaning if you're hearing, you're overcoming. You say, oh, okay, well, where else does
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John use that? Go back to John 3 .16. Whosoever believes.
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That's not actually the better translation. It's who is the believing ones?
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Once again, present active participle. The believing ones. Who are the ones that are going to be saved in the end?
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The believing ones. Who are the ones that are going to be saved in the end here? Those who are overcoming.
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Those who are overcoming. Believing and overcoming can be used synonymously in this context.
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Anybody want to disagree? Go ahead. But you're not going to be overcoming if you're not believing.
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Now, what do we make of the differences between these two churches so far?
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We had in Ephesus, we had what we call the rebuke sandwich. He comes along and he gives them good stuff, right?
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What was the good things he said about Ephesus? Yeah, they persevered, right?
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So he gave them, he talked about their perseverance. What else did he talk about?
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What's that? Well, patience was the same thing. Yeah. What else did he say they did? They were testing people who called themselves apostles.
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That's it. That's it. They tested for truth, intolerant, evil.
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That's good. That's good stuff. But what did he say right in the middle? The first love.
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And who would that first love have been? Christ and His people. You can't make a separation.
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Look, if you're not loving Christ, you're not going to love His people. Then what did he say in the middle of that?
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Here's the sandwich. And then what did he say at the bottom? What did he say? He told them to repent, but then he said, hey, that was part of the rebuke.
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Yes. Here, we can put that in here. That was part of the rebuke. But then what did he say?
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Man, you're busting the chops of the Nicolaitans. That's right. That's what he did.
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That's what we see. Then when we get to Smyrna. What do we know about Smyrna?
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They had tribulation. What's that? They had tribulation. Yes. Tribulation.
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Poor. He didn't say anything bad.
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Nothing bad. Smyrna. He didn't say anything bad about the church of Smyrna.
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Nothing. This was a faithful church. Was the church in Smyrna in a place of affluence?
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What did we learn last week? What's that? Major. Poor. The same thing that the super apostles had done in Corinthians.
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They were having the same issues with men coming in in Ephesus. You've got to remember, you had basically circuit preachers that would run around and try to mislead
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God's people. They were dealing with what the devil did. He says, kill me.
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He says, and you're just like your father, the devil. So, once again, he's called them the synagogue of Satan because he sees them as opposed to him and his work.
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Same thing here. Those Jews in Smyrna were opposed to Christians, and being opposed to Christ and his people is satanic in nature.
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Okay? We good? Get it? All right. Yes, sir. Did you say also that because the Jews were of the synagogue of Satan, they also had to deal with false teaching from a different perspective?
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Yes, from a different perspective. And the only reason why I didn't say that, I'm sure there was bringing in Judaism along with it.
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I'm sure. But the text doesn't imply, doesn't say that. That's why I didn't want to. I agree with you. They probably did have to deal.
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I think every church had to deal with false teaching. But Jesus didn't mention that because that wasn't their issue.
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The issue, what we do know happened in Smyrna, is that the Jewish people persecuted them, actually said they're not part of Judaism.
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They're not a sect of Judaism. They're their own people. Therefore, punish them. That's why they had their property taken away.
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Remember, they were under a religious exemption with Rome. But once the Jewish people come along and say, that's not us.
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They're not part of us. Well, then they started to make that connection. This is, okay, being the synagogue of Satan, that's another reason why
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I don't think this would have been a late date. Okay? And I'll wrap it up here.
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An early date, you still have
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Jews against Christians.
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Response, no response from Rome.
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You understand the first century, where was all the persecution coming from against the Christians? Jewish.
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It was all Jewish. I think I mentioned it last week. It's either chapter 18 or 19 of Acts. I mean,
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Galileo was sitting at the judgment seat. They'd come into Corinth. The head of the synagogue there was
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Sosthenes. And I think if you look in 1 Corinthians, it opens up with Paul talking really good about Sosthenes, his partner in the word and all that.
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But it was Sosthenes, when Paul got to Corinth, that the Jews pulled out of the synagogue and beat the brakes off that guy, right in front of the
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Romans, and they did nothing. Okay? So, early date, you would still have the
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Jews fighting against them with no response from Rome, and they didn't care.
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To say that this is a late date, that it was the time of Domitian, let me let you know something about Domitian if it's a late date.
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And if you still hold the late date, I'm fine with that. But what we do know about the late date,
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Jews were not emboldened to do anything. What had just happened to their temple in 78
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AD? Crushed. Vespasian, after doing that, what did he do?
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He imposed taxes.
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That temple tax, remember?
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Temple tax that had to be paid? You know what Vespasian did after he leveled them? He said, well, you know what
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I'm going to do now? Now that I killed you, killed all the insurrectionists, I smashed them up there at Masada in 73, now that I've got you squashed down, all them taxes y 'all were doing to elevate this place that y 'all called your holy place,
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I want that money. And you're going to pay me. And if you don't, I'm going to persecute you. Vespasian had a son,
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Titus. He was actually the general that crushed the temple.
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He was from about 79 to 81 AD. He was most probably poisoned by his brother,
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Domitian. You know what Domitian did to the
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Jews? Remember, this would have been in the 90s. The late date for the book of Revelation is in the 90s.
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Just understand, the Jews were in no position in the 90s to do anything.
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Okay? The Council of Jamie had already happened, where they were trying to figure out how they were going to start worshiping
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God and all that, now that the temple was gone. But what Domitian did, is he enforced what his daddy and his brother did to a further extreme.
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Don't take my word for it. You can go read Suetonius. You can read Cassius Dio. And Tacitus.
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And there's one more. I can't remember right off the top of my head. Tacitus, Cassius Dio.
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Tacitus, Cassius Dio. Suetonius. I'll remember it in a minute. Every one of them said that Domitian went around, and you know how he found out who was a
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Jew? He checked them for circumcision. So, just another for an early date.
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If you take a late date, Smyrna doesn't fit the culture. They were in no position to be doing anything.
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But, in Smyrna, they did have, hey, at the time of the writing here, my late and early date, they would have had
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Rome saying, okay, they're persecuting Christians where?
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In Rome. Nero made the distinction between the
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Jew and the Christian. So did these people in Smyrna.
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They're not part of us. They're not part of us. And by them not being part of the Jewish community, they had their property taken, they were impoverished, they were put in prison, all of that, based on the
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Jews basically snitching them out. But we'll close with this, and we'll pray and get out of here.
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He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.
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The admonition is this. Be faithful until the end. If you do not remain faithful to the end, you will not receive the prize.
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And what's the prize? Being crowned with eternal life at the end of the age. Let's pray.
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Father God, thank You so much for this very small letter, smallest letter to the seven churches.
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Father, filled with encouragement. Father, no bad thing to say about them.
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Father, encouraging them to be faithful until the end and how applicable that is to us today that Father, no matter what this life holds,
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Father, we're to be faithful until the end. And what that looks like is just keep believing and keep trusting no matter what the circumstances are around us.
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Father, we thank You for Your Son who makes it possible. We thank You for Your Spirit which is living and residing in us, leading us and guiding us into all truth.
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Now Father, as we go into the time of preaching and singing, we pray that You would open our hearts, that we would be obedient to the
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Scripture that's preached, and that Father, as we open our lips and singing music to You, that there would be a sweet aroma to Your nostrils in Christ's name, amen.