Letters to the Churches Part 2

Hello to everybody this morning, and those of you joining us from off -site, you know, those of

you who are social distancing, again, there's nothing wrong with that, and those of you who are joining us from areas where

finding a faithful church is a difficult time, we're glad that you're here with us today.

We're going to pray, and we're going to get started, and I noticed that there were questions as it relates to

eternity in the chat box, so I made sure that that when I switched everything over to

my laptop, we didn't lose those questions, at least took note of that.

So before we get started, let us pray.

Blessed Lord, you've caused all holy scripture to be written for our learning.

Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, so that by patience

and comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting

life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

All right, now let me do this real quick here.

I've got to share my screen.

Hold on, there we go.

So here we go.

Share.

I've got to make sure I don't hit the end button by accident.

This senior moment, so tragic, yet so true.

Anyway, yeah, so I think it was Heather McDonald who asked, what text helped bring

understanding of God's eternality?

This is a text, if you were to Google it, funny enough, there are resources online that talk about this.

And also, if you have a copy of the 2017 Luther's Small Catechism, there is a section

talking about the attributes of God, and the eternality of God is one of his attributes.

And I'll show you just a couple of places where the gist of it is borne out, but I would say that there are plenty of

passages that talk about how God is the first and the last.

He's the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Other passages say that he is the one who is, who was, who is to come.

He's the past tense, present tense, and future tense all kind of wrapped into one.

That's kind of the basic idea.

But a clear text that just explicitly says it is going to be Deuteronomy

chapter 33, verse 27, which states the eternal God is your

dwelling place.

And so you'll note here that there's a text that explains that there is an eternal God.

And this is the part where Christians of all ages, in fact, even the church

fathers understood that eternity is something different than time and space.

And so if we were to kind of look at a particular concept, let me go to

Genesis 1.

Genesis 1, 1 in our Hebrew, very first word.

And by the way, in the Old Testament, the name of the first book is not Genesis, it's

Bereshit.

So Bereshit is the word I have highlighted here on the screen.

That means in.

Bereshit means beginning.

So Bereshit, in the beginning.

This is an interesting phrase.

And the reason why is because when it comes to us human beings as creatures, the time -space

continuum that we find ourselves in, there is a beginning.

And although I'm not a big fan of big bang concepts, because the idea that

somehow a big explosion created everything, that's a weird thing.

I never use dynamite to create things.

I always use dynamite to blow things up.

And I will never admit to using dynamite.

Anyway.

But we don't generally use dynamite for the purpose of creating.

The idea then is this, is that the big bang, the basic premise behind it is that

all the matter that presently is in the universe as we know it, that

it was all in one very tightly packed golf ball size thing.

And next thing you know, it's exploding out and there's a beginning to the universe.

And so if there's a beginning to the universe, then you're going to note that God is outside

of whatever this universe, this time -space continuum is.

So that's just kind of the way to understand it.

So we are creatures of time and space.

God exists in eternity.

And how does that work?

I don't know, because I don't have any context for understanding eternity.

I just don't.

I live on planet earth.

I live in a place where time goes by at a particular

rate and is experienced by human beings in a particular way.

And I can say that there was a long time of human history where I didn't exist.

And then all of a sudden I existed.

That's just how this works.

And there's a time coming, if Christ continues to tarry, where I will not be present in this

creation except for my remains.

And that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

And that means to be present with Christ where?

In eternity.

And eternity is outside of time and space.

Which kind of begs the question, is there a sensation or understanding of time

in eternity?

I have no idea.

I really just don't know.

Again, you're asking me to postulate about something I can't get my head around.

So that's one text in all of this.

And then you'll note that the similar text that you find

in the Gospel of John chapter 1, you have these words,

in arche, so in the beginning, in arche, in halagos, in the beginning was the word.

And this is an interesting thing here because here in this text we have the Greek verb

eimi, to exist, to be.

And so the way the tenses work, in the beginning the word was already

existing, is a good way to put it.

And the word was with God and the word was God.

So Genesis 1, John 1, which is a perfect counterpart to Genesis

1, it's kind of like the John 1 is the Genesis 1 of the New

Testament.

The way the verb tenses work that when the beginning happened, the

lagos was already existing.

And Jesus is the lagos and the lagos is God.

And so you kind of get the idea.

So again, these are concepts that are revealed in scripture,

just a little tough to wrap your head around.

So it's a good thing to, you know, if you want to tease this out, the fact that God is

eternal, again, it's one of the attributes of the nature of God.

He always is, always has been, always will be, there is no time.

And then you'll note that for Christians, we have the gift of

eternal life given to us, eternal life with God in a world without end.

So just as God has always been, the promise for us is that we will be with God

in the new earth, in a world without end.

So you want to know how long eternal life lasts?

Well, it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, you know.

And so a good way to think about it is that, how does the hymn go?

When we've been there 10 ,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's

praise than when we first begun.

That's the way the, you know, amazing grace goes, right?

And it's a concept that's hard to wrap my head around.

I mean, there is a day coming for us as believers in Christ in the new earth when

the question will be, and how old are you?

Well, this year I'm celebrating my 4 ,277 ,696th

year, you know, something like this.

And people are going, oh, you're just a young pup, you know.

I always cracked up when, you know, when I was in my 30s and 40s, people who were in their 60s and 70s would say, oh, you're

just such a young kid.

You're just a kid.

And now I'm in my 50s and I look at people in their 20s and 30s and think, you're just kids.

What goes around comes around.

It's really weird.

So anyway, so that's the answer regarding eternity.

Let's see, Laura and Alan had kind of keyed in on the fact that there are passages that talk this way.

Good, I'm glad.

Yeah, all right.

So my favorite short prayer in one word is help.

Louise, yeah, that's a good one.

One of my favorite prayers as a pastor is, God, please don't let me screw this up.

You know, preaching God's word has a magnitude and a weight to it.

And getting it wrong can actually, for real, hurt people.

Okay.

Okay.

I think the study starts at 10.

Okay.

Hi, Bruce.

So, all right.

There we go.

All right.

So no pending questions that I need to get to other than that.

Glad to see you guys are enjoying each other's company and chatting amongst yourselves online.

Now, we're going to continue then with our study of the book of Revelation.

We are in the book of Revelation chapter two.

We began taking a look at the letters that Christ had John

dictate to seven churches.

First church is the church in Ephesus.

And you'll note that this is a church that is doing a lot of things right and receives a lot of

commendation from Christ.

That they had patient endurance, which, by the way, is kind of like the overarching

theme or call for the book of Revelation.

It is written so that we will be patient in enduring the sufferings of this earth

in these last days.

And so, you'll note that the church in Ephesus, that they had patient endurance.

They don't bear with evil.

They don't put up with it.

Kind of like the way my mother wouldn't put up with my unclean room, but that's a different story.

I'm still, my therapist and I are working that out.

They've tested those who call themselves apostles and found them to be false, which is a good thing.

I know you were enduring patiently.

Here we go again.

Enduring patiently.

Bearing up for my name's sake and you have not grown weary, but what happened?

They've abandoned love.

And so, the idea here is, and the thing we kind of keyed in on, is that it is not contrary to love

to offer a strong or a firm rebuke.

But the idea here is the rebuke is not the point.

The rebuke is for the purpose of repentance.

And so, a good way to think about it is that when we consider passages like

Ephesians 6 talking about the armor of God and other passages that make it very clear that we

do not battle against flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood may be used by the devil for the purpose of making us suffer, but there is no

human being on planet earth who is our enemy.

We don't view them as our enemy.

We may view them as under the control of the enemy, but they are not our enemy.

And so, we contend with them and we rebuke them and we call them to repentance

so that they can be

of protecting the church from false apostles and teachers and things like that.

If you have no love to you, then you've missed the point and you've fallen into the error of the

Ephesian church.

And Christ gives a very strong and firm warning if they don't repent that he will remove their lampstand from its

place.

And it's in that context here as we get ready to move on to the next church, the church of Smyrna,

that I think it's important to talk a little bit about the idea of the use of

mocking or humor or sarcasm in this context because that does show up from time to time in

scripture.

For instance, Elijah on Mount Carmel.

Elijah on Mount Carmel, he's having the showdowns with the prophets of Baal.

And the way the showdown goes, they each have a sacrifice.

No one's allowed to light a fire.

And each respective team is supposed to call on their deity and the God that answers by fire, that

is the real God.

And you'll note that partway through that showdown on Mount Carmel, Elijah mocked them.

And he said to them, cry louder.

And the Hebrew is really strong.

All of our English translations are quite sanitary.

But the gist of what he says next is maybe he's in the bathroom doing a

number two.

And even that's sanitary compared to how the Hebrew works.

Or maybe he's on a journey or he's asleep and he needs to be awoken.

And so one of my colleagues in the Missouri Synod, Hans Feeney, if

you're familiar with his channel, Lutheran Satire.

Years ago, he was invited to do a lecture at a conference put on by the Brothers of John the Steadfast,

and talking about the biblical case for the use of satire and snark.

And he makes a really good point.

And he says, biblically, you have to kind of look at it like this.

Number one, are you in the arena?

Are you in a position or in an office that requires you to speak out against false teaching?

That's number one.

So all pastors are in that arena.

But you're going to note then that there's an inappropriate use of satire and snark, and then there's an appropriate use.

So if somebody were to come to me and say, Pastor Rosebro, Pastor Rosebro, I have spent the

last 10 years in the New Apostolic Reformation, have been to the Bethel School of

Supernatural Ministry, and I'm beginning to have doubts regarding whether or not I was

taught the truth.

And so I have some questions for you.

It would be absolutely wrong, hideous of me to just basically say,

well, you should have known better.

I mean, that's just Looney Tunes.

Everybody knows that Bethel is cuckoo banana town.

And just kind of mock and demean them in that manner.

When somebody comes to you with an honest question, then it requires that you handle it in

love and kindness.

That being the case, that when you deal with somebody who is speaking for God

and is seen as an authority when they're not, or they're claiming to be an apostle and they're not,

you'll note that many of the mockeries of the New Testament are reserved for

those claiming to be apostles and are not, or prophets and they're not, or

claiming that they speak on the same authority as the apostles and they're teaching heresy.

Rank heresy would be like the Judaizing heresy.

And so you think of the Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians talking about those who are troubling

the churches in Galatia.

And he says of them that he wishes that the Judaizers, the

circumcision party, would just go all the way and have the Lopidothomy procedure done on them.

They think that their holiness is demonstrated by circumcision.

And he basically derides them and says, why don't they show themselves to be even more holy and just get rid of the whole thing.

And it's just really, it's really strong.

And so you'll note those types of strong rebukes, they

are part of the arrows, if you would, of those who are in the ring when it comes to defending the truth and proclaiming the

gospel.

And they have to be used rightly and used for the correct people, not

those who are honestly seeking answers or even those who are under delusions.

You've got to be careful at times when you go that way.

So you get the idea.

But I think about the fact that I've had a recent dust up with a particular cult leader who happens to reside in

London who claims to be Jewish and he's not.

His minions have these sock puppet accounts and they pop up on my social media from time to time.

And yeah, I've reserved the right, biblically, to use humor and

satire when it comes to addressing their errors.

But any of them who've come to me privately, and I've had a growing number of people who used to be part of this cult

who are coming to me privately and asking me questions, I always treat them with kindness, patience, and respect.

But the purpose then of kind of showing absurdity to be absurd, and that, by the way, it

falls into the rhetorical category.

If you've heard it in logic, there's different types of argumentations.

There's one particular type of argumentation that is called reductio ad absurdum.

Reductio ad absurdum.

And what this does is you take somebody's bad argument and you reduce it down to its

absolute absurdist form.

Take it to its logical conclusion and then show how ridiculous this is.

And so you'll note that in the wars that are going on in social media

regarding Marxism or capitalism, I find it fascinating that those who are defending capitalism are very astute

students of how to use reductio ad absurdum, taking the arguments of the Marxists and showing that run to their logical

conclusions, you're not going to end up with everybody being wealthy.

You're going to end up with everybody basically being in abject poverty.

Or dead, or both.

You get the idea.

So the idea then is that there is a right use when it

comes to satire, or comedy, or showing something to be absurd.

But it needs to be done again with the concept that this is for the purpose of loving

somebody.

And when you're using something to that effect, you'll note that on the day that

Elijah had the showdown with the prophets of Baal, none of them lived past that day.

After God sent fire from heaven, then all of the prophets of Baal and Asherah were put

to death.

They were put to the sword.

And so then the purpose of Elijah's mocking wasn't for their sake.

The purpose of Elijah's mocking was for the sake of the people of Israel who were standing on the and wavering

between two opinions.

So that when God finally showed up, then they can think back on the account and go, yeah, it was kind of stupid

of us to think that Baal really was God.

That was just dumb.

Because part of the way idolatry worked in the ancient world is you did have to wake your deity

up, which is just ridiculous.

Your God has to be awoken?

Are you kidding me?

And then you sit there and go, well, what about Jesus when he was in that boat and he was asleep?

He's your God.

Yeah, well, that's God incarnate.

That's a different category.

You can discuss details of that differently, but you get the idea.

So that fits within now the concepts as

we looked at the letter written to the church in Ephesus.

And so we continue to the angel of the church in Smyrna.

And we, again, acknowledge that angelos here in this context, the word that is translated in your

English Bible as angel, could very rightly be understood as the pastor.

An angel is a messenger.

The pastor is the messenger.

So the idea.

So to the angel of the church of Smyrna, write the words of the first and the last who died

and came to life.

All right?

Who died and came to life.

Important bits to note here.

And so you'll note Christ invoking that he's the first and the last, talking about his

eternity.

He's the beginning and the end.

And the fact that he died and came to life again is an important reminder here.

And I think this sets the stage.

So for us as Christians, again, noting that in the book of Revelation, the major theme here is for us to

get a proper perspective on what we're going through so that we can bear up under it with patient endurance.

And for Christ himself to invoke his death and resurrection is to also invoke

our own death and resurrection and to have us have a perspective that is one not of in

the moment, but a perspective that is far enough back that we can see

that we are in a context where we could die.

But don't worry.

All right?

I always like to tell people, if you're baptized, since Romans 6 says that in your baptism you were buried

with Christ and raised with Christ, you've already got death taken care of.

Death is off your bucket list.

You don't have to worry about it.

It's a done deal.

So we've already got one foot out of the grave.

We don't have one foot in the grave like the unbeliever.

We have one foot out of the grave by virtue of the fact that we've been united with Christ and his resurrection.

And this view then of eternal life and of the resurrection, it should have a

very huge impact on how you conduct yourself, especially in the face of tribulation.

So Christ says, I know your tribulation and your poverty.

So you'll note that whoever was in this church, the Church of Smyrna, they

were sorely oppressed.

They're going through tribulation.

And it sounds like, you know, that they haven't got a wealthy person on the

roster of their membership roles and they're poor.

But Christ reminds them, you're not poor.

You're rich.

And he's saying the same thing to us.

But their wealth, their rich, their ability

for Christ to be able to say that they're rich, we share in those riches.

So it doesn't matter if you're not able to pay your bills right now or if COVID -19 is taking your company out or anything like

that.

It doesn't matter if you're poverty stricken in this moment.

The reality is that you are rich.

Now granted, that doesn't mean that you can write a check on your heavenly bank account and pay your mortgage with it.

That's not the point.

The point is for us to remember we're passing through and the upsets, the tribulations, the

difficulty of this life do not take away the truth of what Christ has

promised that we already have.

So, and then note then, I know you're poverty, but you're rich.

And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Under the current context, that one's just weird to read.

Anyway, all right.

So you're going to note here, there's another aspect to this and one that, if we're going to tear this apart

properly, exegetically, why on earth would Christ say of those

who are Jews that they are not and that their synagogue is not a synagogue to God, but a

synagogue of Satan?

Why would God say that?

Because if you're familiar with evangelical views regarding Israel today, one of the

things that they talk about, and this is all caught up in their eschatology, is this view that

Christ is going to secretly return, he's going to rapture the church, and that there's going to be a seven -year period of

tribulation.

And during that seven -year period of tribulation, people who are genetically Jewish are going to come to the

forefront of human history at that time.

But the problem is that they are not making a proper distinction regarding how God views

who is Jewish and who is not.

And this is laid out for us in very clear text, ones that it would behoove us to

consider in this context.

So let me see if I can just give you a couple examples.

Romans 9, the Apostle Paul says this, I'm speaking the truth in Christ.

I'm not lying.

My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I wish that I myself were accursed and

cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

They are Israelites.

To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, or you can

say Messiah here.

Christos and Messiah are synonymous terms, by the way.

Is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.

Amen.

But it's not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

And you'll note, Romans 9, 6 gives us a proper understanding here.

Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

And we know this is true, all right?

Who has the big blame when it comes to the crucifixion of

Christ?

People who were genetically Jewish were the ones who put on the kangaroo court that found

Jesus guilty of charges that he was not guilty of, that they intentionally skewed, and they're

the ones who handed him over to the Romans for crucifixion.

So you'll note that the fact that they were genetically Jewish, and one of them was a high priest,

that had no bearing, because now we're going to get into a very important distinction.

And the distinction is this.

Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring,

genetic.

But, and then watch how Paul quotes here, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

And this is a theme that Paul also digs into in the book of Galatians.

And the idea here is that Abraham had two sons.

Two.

One was the son of the slave woman, the other was the son of the promise.

And Isaac then is the type and shadow of the descendants of Abraham

who are descended and offspring of Abraham by the promise, by the faith that

Abraham had.

So this means that it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but it is the children of the promise.

They are counted as offspring.

Notice, they're counted as offspring.

So each and every one of us here, I love the fact that here at Kongsvinger we have an ethnic

diversity, we have an ethnic mix here.

And I always like to tell the people here at Kongsvinger, you know, look at all of us here.

We got some people who are from different parts of the world, you know, as far as their ancestry is concerned,

and yet we are all in Christ considered to be offspring of Abraham.

And last Sunday in the sermon, even quoted Mikey, Mikey DeGraw,

who when I preached on this topic a couple years back, in the middle of the sermon, blurted out Mazel

Tov, you know.

So, which is not, it's not quite an appropriate thing, because Mazel Tov means

good stars.

It's kind of a superstitious idea.

But the point is well made though.

And the point is, is that we all are children of Abraham by the promise,

because we believe, we have the same faith as Abraham.

For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I'll return and Sarah shall have a son.

And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by the man, our forefather Isaac, though

they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but

because of him who calls, she was told that the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I loved

and Esau I hate.

So what shall we say then?

Is there injustice on God's part?

No.

For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you

and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.

And then you'll say to me then, well, then why does God still find fault for who can resist his will?

But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

By the way, you're nobody and answering back to God doesn't make any sense.

It's an eternity limiting move.

So why have you made me like this?

Has the potter no right over the clay to make you out of the same lump, one vessel for honorable use, another for

dishonorable use?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make known his power has endured with much patience vessels

of wrath, which have been prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for

vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Even us whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles as indeed he says, those who were not my

people, I will call my people.

And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved.

And in that very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, they will be called

sons of the living God.

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only

a remnant of them will be saved.

And so, you know, chapter 9 verse 27 kind of keeps driving home this point.

In Isaiah's day, idolatrous descendants of

Abraham, was their Jewishness, their ancestral heritage something that they can point

to, to merit God's favor and grace?

No.

They were called by God as worthless because of their idolatry and

their unbelief.

So though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.

For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.

As Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and

become like Gomorrah.

So what shall we say then?

That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, they've attained it.

That is, they've attained a righteousness that is by faith.

But Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in

reaching that law.

Why?

Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.

They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion, a stone of stumbling, a

rock of offense.

Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

So you get the idea that being genetically Jewish doesn't give you an inside track.

The question is if the sons of Abraham, according to scripture, according to the new covenant, are those who

have the same faith as Abraham.

They are children of the promise.

And then I think Romans 11 continues with this theme.

So I ask then, has God rejected his people?

Well, by no means.

I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?

Lord, they've killed your prophets.

They've demolished your altars.

And I alone am left.

They seek my life.

But what is God's reply to him?

I've kept for myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

So too, then, at the present time there is a remnant, and that remnant is chosen

by grace.

But if it is by grace, it's no longer on the basis of works.

Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

So what then?

Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.

The elect, they've obtained it.

And the rest were hardened, as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, ears that

would not hear, even down to this very day.

And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever.

So I ask then, did they stumble in order that they might fall?

No, by no means.

Rather, through their trespass, salvation has now come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.

Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more would their

full inclusion mean?

Now, I'm speaking to you as Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostles of the Gentiles.

I magnify my ministry in order that somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some

of them.

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what would their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump.

And if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot were grafted in among the others,

and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.

If you are, remember it is not you who supports the root, but the root that supports you.

So then you will say, but branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.

Well, that's true.

They were broken off because of unbelief.

But you stand fast through faith, so do not become proud, but fear.

For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

Note then the kindness and the severity of God.

Severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his

kindness.

Otherwise, you too will be cut off.

And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in

again.

For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted contrary to nature into a

cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?

So lest you be wise in your own side, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.

A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

And in this way, all of Israel will be saved.

As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, and he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.

And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

As regards to the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.

As regards to election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their

disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by mercy, but by the

mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy.

For God has consigned all to disobedience so that he might have mercy on all.

Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom, the knowledge of God, and how unsearchable are his judgments, and how

inscrutable his ways.

So the gist of this then, then coming back to Jesus's letter, talking about people who are

Jews who are attending synagogue, they are causing Christians in Smyrna

to suffer.

They are slandering them.

And although they are genetically Jewish, Christ says of them that they are not Jews,

and they are instead a synagogue of Satan.

So if we do not, if we do not, how do I put it, if we fail to see how

scripture makes this distinction, and fail to see that the church has not replaced Israel,

but all the Gentiles who've been brought to faith in Christ have been grafted into Israel, then we're gonna, we're gonna mess up our

theology in so many ways.

So much of pre -millennialism is, and especially the pre -Trib rapture form of pre

-millennialism, these are concepts that do not make a proper distinction between who is,

according to scripture, a descendant of Abraham, and who is not.

And genetics is not the thing that is the thing of note, it's faith.

So keep that in mind, all right?

So, I know your tribulation, Christ says, your poverty but your rich, the slander of those who

say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

So what does Christ say in the midst of slander and tribulation?

Same thing he said to Peter, he said to the disciples when he was walking on the water, do

not be afraid.

And in this particular case he says, do not be afraid what you are about to suffer.

So as Christians, we're made to suffer.

Do any of you just go, all right man, I've got suffering and tribulation ahead, bring it on!

It's a hard no, yeah, no.

The thing is that we don't like to suffer, we don't like to go through tribulation.

And so the idea here is that fearing tribulation, fearing suffering, fearing slander,

fearing things, this is the thing that's the problem, all right?

Because at the end of the day, if you're fearing your suffering, then you don't believe

on one level or another that Christ is the one who died and came to life again, that he's the first and the

last, that he's got you, all right?

So we're going to go through suffering as Christians, don't be afraid of it.

So what do you do as a Christian?

You just keep on keeping on.

What does that look like?

You make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching all that Christ has commanded.

Proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' name.

You gather to hear God's word, to receive the body and blood of Christ, wash, rinse, repeat.

Yeah, but it's getting dangerous to do that.

Well, it's been dangerous to do that since Christ ascended, and many Christians have

faced slander, persecution, suffering as a result of it.

And Christ says, don't fear it.

Who should we fear?

Christ.

So do not fear what you're about to suffer.

Behold, the devil's about to throw some of you into prison, yay, so that you may be tested, and for

10 days you'll have tribulation.

Now, one of the things I've already made a comment about is that oftentimes the numbers in the book of

Revelation are symbolic numbers, and so you'll note that this letter written to the church in Smyrna

is not merely written to the church in Smyrna.

It's also written to us to comfort us in times of slander, persecution, and suffering as well.

And so these 10 days, they may not be 10 literal days as far as what Christians

are made to suffer right now, but you'll note the 10 days is really not that long.

It's not that long of a time.

Let me explain.

If any of you ever been on a cruise, maybe it's the Caribbean or something like that.

So usually there's cruises where you've got seven -day cruises or 10 -day cruises, or you go on a decent

vacation and you got two weeks off of work.

Well, if you got two weeks off of work, you're only going to be able to spend 10 days in Aruba or Fiji or the

Maldives.

And then you need time to travel there and to travel back and all this kind of stuff.

So let's say that you've taken two weeks off of work and you're going to travel to the Maldives, which is a place I'd really like

to visit sometime.

But that's a different story.

I've always traveled there using other people's vacation photos and videos because it's a lot cheaper.

But anyway, so you travel to the Maldives and I've been on a vacation similar to this in this sense.

When you get there, it's day one, and you're already starting to think about,

I'm only going to be here for 10 days.

By day three or four, you're already starting to plan out what the return home trip is looking

like.

By day eight, day eight is like a wash because your soon

departure is practically all up in your head.

And then you finally, at day 10, you fly back home.

And it just seems like it goes like this.

It really does.

Why are you giving me that look?

I don't know.

A cruise on an Ohio -class nuclear submarine does not.

That's a different thing altogether.

And those usually last a little longer than 10 days.

They don't have shuffleboard on the Lido deck?

No.

Apparently we need to introduce the Navy to shuffleboard.

Anyway, so you get the idea.

That being the case then, 10 days is really not that long of a time.

It's notable, but it's just a very brief amount of time.

So you're going to be made to suffer.

It's for a short amount of time.

And yeah, and it's for testing even.

But understand this, it's just like this.

So what does Christ say in the midst of those 10 days?

Be faithful unto death.

Wait a second.

What?

In 10 days I'm dead?

Yeah.

Yeah, 10 days you're dead.

So be faithful unto death.

I will give you the crown of life.

And notice he says give.

He doesn't say you're going to earn it.

This is given to you.

So be faithful unto death.

I'll give you the crown of life.

And so this requires this eternal perspective then.

Jesus is the first.

He's the last.

He's the one who died and rose again.

He's going to be the one who gives us the crown of life.

And we are to be faithful for 10 days.

And at the end of 10 days, you're going to be dead.

And don't worry.

That's the whole point of all of this.

Fear Christ.

Don't fear your suffering.

Don't fear your slanderers.

Don't fear your persecutors.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

And we know from later in the book of Revelation, the second death is what?

The second death is the lake of fire.

The second death is hell itself.

So to the angel of the church in Pergamum write the words of him who has the sharp

two -edged sword.

And if you remember the vision from earlier in the book, that two -edged sword has come straight out of Christ's

mouth.

So he says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.

Oh, okay.

So this should be...

That says Pergamum.

I guess that's a typo.

This should be Washington, D .C.

To the angel of the church of Washington, D .C.

Anyway.

Back in the day when you would have to pay long -distance phone charges, people in Washington, D .C. were shocked to

find out that it never cost any money to phone hell because it was a local call.

So I'm pulling out some old jokes.

Sorry here.

Now before we get too far here, let me see here.

Okay.

Good morning, everybody.

No building for the essentials either.

These letters are so telling and revealing some of my favorite passages.

Yeah.

Okay.

It did crackle for a moment there.

Okay.

I'm sorry to hear that.

We did have a pretty good rainstorm come through.

So I'm not sure how that impacts our internet out here, but I'm not seeing...

All right.

Israel was also a person.

Okay.

Tony says Israel was also a person initially.

The point was never genetics, but about the second Adam.

I think people today forget this and think only of land, etc.

Am I right in thinking this way?

Tony, I think you're correct in thinking this way.

And I would say that you don't properly understand the life, death, and ministry

of Christ and how he fulfills the Mosaic Covenant.

Because what is Jesus?

A good way to think about it is...

And Matthew's gospel really shows this very well if you know how to read for it.

Matthew's gospel is broken up into five pieces.

And those who are Mathean scholars note that there's a very specific way in which Matthew

wrote his gospel designed specifically for an audience that was Jewish.

And the five pieces invoke the first five books of the Bible, the Torah.

And you can make a very good claim, back it up very easily, that Matthew is

showing that Jesus is all of Israel squished down into one person.

And that's how he's able to fulfill the Mosaic Covenant.

Because Jesus is Israel.

He's squished into one man.

And so Israel ends up fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant in Christ because he's...

And so the idea then is rather than the multitude out in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, you have Jesus by himself

in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil.

It's invoking these things.

And so Israel is, you know...

And then kind of working off this thing here, Christ says, I am

the vine, you are the branches.

Work that one with Romans 11 and it starts to make perfect sense.

Well, if Christ is the vine and we're the branches, then Jesus is Israel and we've been grafted into him.

That's kind of the point of the metaphor.

So Tony, I think you've hit on a very important distinction.

And so what happens in today's premillennial dispensationalism, they're out there trying to make the

claim that today's restored nation of Israel somehow is the Israel of

note.

The Israel of note for all Christians is Christ.

And we've been grafted into him.

So hold on one second here.

I was futzing with my laptop and my power cord came out.

There we go.

We don't want the batteries to run out.

Okay.

All right.

Coming back then to the church at Pergamum or Washington, D .C. I know where you dwell, where Satan's

throne is.

You hold fast to my name and you did not deny my faith, even in the days of

Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

So they lost a fellow.

They actually had somebody who was martyred for his confession of faith in Christ, a

fellow by the So if we say

he was a faithful witness, we say he was a martyr.

Well, here's where the word martyr comes from.

And so let me make this just a little bit bigger.

And my faithful witness.

So here's our Greek word.

Martus.

The word martyr means witness.

To give the ultimate witness of Christ is to have your life

taken from you because of your confession of Christ.

So the idea then here, he was a faithful martus.

He was a faithful witness.

He was a faithful martyr.

That's where we get the name martyr from.

It comes from the word witness in Greek.

And I won't charge you extra for a little Greek information.

That's all part of the package, you know, that you guys are.

Anyway, there's no package.

I'm just joking.

All right.

So he says, I have a few things against you, though.

You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam,

Balaam of the Old Testament.

Now, Balaam, you can talk about him in kind of two different ways.

And I think there's a specific way in which Christ is referring to him.

But if you know the story, the children of Israel are getting close to arriving

in the promised land and they have to pass through several places.

And one of the princes of the tribal area that the

children of Israel were to pass through hired a fellow by the name of Balaam

to curse Israel.

And it's a crazy story.

And this is a fellow who was known as a diviner.

Jude refers to him as a prophet for profit.

He prophesied for money.

And so he has no particular loyalty to any particular deity.

He's learned how to invoke any deity you want to call down particular curses that you need and

all for the proper price.

And so he was hired for the purpose of calling down a curse on Israel, on the children of

Israel.

And so he's doing his mumbo jumbo and he decides that he says, I got to go over

there and I'm going to have a conversation with Yahweh, the God of Israel.

And he picks up the phone and dials the number and God picks up.

And the guy freaks out.

And Yahweh's like, Balaam?

He's like, yes sir.

You're going to say only what I'm going to tell you to say and you cannot curse Israel because they are blessed.

And so you have these three instances where he's being promised a

huge exorbitant amount of money for the purpose of cursing Israel.

And each and every time God has basically bound him under threat of death, you

know, that he is only to say only the very words that Yahweh gives him.

And so oddly enough, this pagan syncretist witch doctor,

the prophecy he gives, he ends up giving a prophecy regarding the Messiah himself.

And that being the case, that prophecy, even though it was given by a person who was as

detestable as they get, gets rolled up into the Torah.

And it's recorded there for us for all posterity, because regardless of the person who heard the word of the

Lord, the important thing is that the word of the Lord came to him.

And so you'll note that.

But what ends up happening, we learn this later on, is that the way the story

unfolds, Balaam is nursing a grudge, if

you would.

He's out a lot of money.

I mean, he was promised just an exorbitant fee if all he would do was curse Israel.

And so he concocted a scheme that was then employed

by, I think the Moabites, for the purpose of causing God to curse Israel.

And Balaam came up with this wonderful idea to get all the hot Moabite chicks to go

visit the Israelite camp and sexually seduce a large number

of Israelite men into committing sexual sin and also

sacrificing to their idols.

Because, I mean, after all, they were hot.

And oddly enough, as dumb as it sounds, a whole lot of guys went, yeah, but she's so

beautiful, and went for the whole scheme, and a whole lot of them lost

their lives.

But then later, Balaam himself was put to death by the Israelites, by the

armies of Joshua, for this particular sin.

So you'll note that in this particular context, I have a few things against you, Christ says to the church of

You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block

before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and

practice sexual immorality.

So you'll note there's some kind of religious syncretism going on there in Pergamum, and

turning the gospel into some kind of licentiousness.

Licentiousness.

I'm basically saying, well, Jesus died for all my sins, so it doesn't matter what I do

with my body.

Well, actually, it does.

And then he says, so also you have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

And so here we've got the teaching of the Nicolaitans again referenced.

The Nicolaitans were Gnostics.

They were a very early form of the Gnostic heresy.

And as I've pointed out, Gnostics believe that everything material that you can smell, taste, touch with your

senses, that this is all an accident.

And therefore, sexual immorality is not a big deal because matter doesn't matter anyway.

The only thing that matters is spiritual.

So when you talk about these types of sins here, the question immediately come up is, in our day,

are there churches?

Are there church bodies?

Are there congregations that are syncretistic in their

views regarding religion?

They basically don't have a problem mixing Christianity with other religions.

And what are their views regarding sexual immorality?

I can think of a particular denomination that calls itself Lutheran, the ELCA, and

they have women priests, or pastrixes, and they

ordain impenitent homosexuals.

And there's people within the ELCA right now who are

advocates, vocal advocates, and people who are pushing for polyamory to be

recognized within the church.

This is just rank sexual immorality.

And what does Christ say to congregations that are engaged in this kind of nonsense?

Repent.

Repent.

If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth, which is what?

The sword of his word.

Christ says, repent, and I'm going to war against you with what?

The word of God.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone

that no one except the one who knows except for the one who receives it.

We'll talk about this part next week, but that's where we're going to end off today.

So let me check questions before we get too far and we wrap up.

Okay, so need the reference argument concerning Matthew and the five sections.

Okay, so Tony, in a situation like that, I would reference you to maybe the

Concordia commentary, Concordia, put up by Concordia Publishing House, the Concordia commentary on

the book of Matthew, but also Nikot, you know, just a good

scholarly commentary, and a good scholarly commentary on Matthew

is going to reference that.

So this is a common feature of the book of Matthew, and a good commentary,

including the Concordia commentary on Matthew, would be places that discuss these things.

So, all right.

All right, very good.

Well, brothers and sisters, we will see you next time.