0:02

IDC Podcast would like to thank our listeners

0:04

and supporters at BuyMeACoffeecom

0:06

forward slash ID Podcast for

0:09

making today's show possible . Please

0:11

be sure to subscribe , rate our show

0:13

with your podcast provider of choice and

0:15

, as always , share with others

0:18

, as that's how we grow . Also

0:20

, be sure to check out Episode 137

0:23

for the complete Pillars of Intelligent Design

0:25

audiobook , at no cost to our listeners

0:27

.

0:40

Welcome to the IDC Podcast . This is Aleko

0:43

, and I hope you're well . So at

0:45

long last , michael and I were able to

0:47

get together again to discuss Revelation

0:49

. This is

0:51

a third or fourth Revelation study that I

0:53

think we've done in 20 years . We've

0:56

already done one on this podcast , but we like coming together

0:58

to discuss it every now and again because it's

1:00

a lot of fun , and Revelation contains

1:03

multiple allusions to the Old Testament

1:05

and forces one to do

1:07

a study of the entire Bible . It's

1:10

all of Scripture and a microcosm , so

1:12

it's a great exercise

1:15

in dwelling on our Christ

1:17

and learning the Scripture , as

1:19

we've been asked to . Revelation

1:21

is also the only book in the Bible that promises

1:24

a special blessing to the reader , and

1:27

whenever we come together to discuss it , we

1:29

intend to claim that blessing , and

1:32

we hope that you do too . So , without

1:34

any further delay , let's get into our

1:36

study of the Churches of Revelation , what

1:39

many consider to be a report card

1:41

to the Ecclesia or the

1:44

body of Christ , and what

1:46

some people consider to be the

1:48

most important books of Revelation

1:51

Christ's epistle , his letter

1:53

to the Churches themselves . Just

1:56

as a side note for the end of September

1:58

, up until the middle of October , I

2:01

will be traveling through my

2:03

family's home country , greece , and

2:05

also through my wife's home country , england , to

2:07

visit family , so I won't be on Instagram

2:09

or the podcast very often

2:12

, though we are going to maybe attempt

2:14

to do another book club on September

2:16

30th and we'll see how that goes . Got allowing

2:19

, and then , you know , maybe if

2:21

I am out traveling I'll record a video or two

2:23

, as we do intend to upload them

2:25

at some point soon . Got allowing , so

2:28

without further delay , let's

2:30

get started . I'm

2:50

also going to record on Skype , just

2:52

for redundancy , and maybe we

2:54

should pray for a special blessing

2:57

on the

2:59

meeting . So , nothing too bananas

3:01

goes down , I guess . Yeah

3:04

, too crazy . All

3:08

right , heavenly

3:11

Father , I thank you for allowing

3:13

Michael and I to join today

3:15

to discuss the book

3:17

of Revelation . I mean

3:19

, ask that you bless

3:21

this meeting and edify

3:24

us with wisdom

3:26

, kind of our thoughts , direct

3:29

our conversation in a way that would be edifying

3:32

to others and allow

3:35

us to have a good time and to fill

3:37

your presence with us and

3:39

around us . And thank you for

3:41

all of your blessings , both the good things and the

3:43

bad . In Christ's name , we

3:45

pray Amen . All

3:50

right , welcome

3:52

Michael . How are you Good

3:55

? Yeah , how about you ? Good

3:57

, good , good , it's gosh . So we're on

3:59

pace for 2030

4:02

. Finish of this . This , I guess , revelation

4:04

study .

4:06

Well , I think you know it's going to give us some good

4:08

insight into the return of our Lord

4:10

.

4:10

Because we know this , we

4:12

have to be able to explain Revelation

4:14

perfectly to everybody first , I

4:17

feel like on the next one we're just going to

4:19

be in the middle of it . We're going to

4:22

hear like trumpet outside

4:24

. So

4:33

yeah , I definitely . What have you been up to

4:35

? Before we get into it , Maybe I'll just ask you what you've been

4:37

up to , how your summer has been . Did

4:39

you travel anywhere ? I can't even remember .

4:41

I went back to Las Vegas my wife's from

4:43

there Autumn , and

4:46

so we went back there . I actually had something for work

4:48

there as well , so it'll dovetail together really

4:50

well . I'm not the world's biggest

4:52

fan of Las Vegas , but to visit

4:54

is nice once in a while . We do about I

4:57

do about once a year and Autumn , and

4:59

the kids get back usually another time . Yeah

5:02

, it was good . And earlier this year we went

5:04

to England . That was more like spring , middle of spring

5:06

, in May , but yeah , it's been good . It's

5:09

been good . I just did a gig

5:12

last week yeah , I think it was

5:14

a week ago , a week from yeah week Saturday

5:16

and that was really fun .

5:18

I heard that went really well , by the way .

5:20

Yeah , yeah , it did , it went really good , what's

5:22

the name of your band ? Never

5:24

Made .

5:24

Silence Never Made Silence . Yeah , and

5:29

I know that I'm just asking , maybe to share with others

5:31

, but what kind of

5:33

music do you guys perform

5:35

?

5:36

We have a couple of original songs , but most of

5:38

it's like singer , songwriter stuff , because it's acoustic

5:41

and so lady

5:44

sings . Obviously she's a lady , so

5:46

we have a female voice . I'll sing some songs , we'll

5:49

do some harmonies . I

5:51

really want to turn it into more of a variety show . We've

5:53

had a couple of guest singers before and we're talking about

5:55

getting her boyfriend in on bass

5:57

guitar and then getting some like a lot

6:00

of guest singers , because then you can kind of I

6:02

just like the vibe of that more . I think music should be something to

6:04

share . So if you get like four or five people that turn

6:06

up that know how to sing and kind

6:08

of mix it up , I think that'd be even more fun than

6:10

just playing a gig straight . You know you're kind of getting

6:13

everyone involved , you know . Yeah . My

6:15

view on church . Really , you know , everyone

6:18

has something to contribute . So I

6:20

like the idea of that , so we might work towards that

6:22

.

6:22

Sure , yeah , there's

6:25

another band that does something similar that

6:27

I used to listen to a little bit of , called

6:29

Postmodern Jukebox

6:31

. Have you ever heard of them ? No ?

6:33

I haven't .

6:34

Yeah , they do covers of famous songs , but

6:36

I think it's the same

6:38

group of instrumentalists but they always have a

6:40

different front person , you

6:43

know lady or man or whatever . You

6:45

can go to YouTube and see some of their stuff . They're actually

6:47

really , really talented . I really enjoy their stuff

6:49

. Melanie and I used to . When we lived in Fuzhou

6:51

in Southern China , there

6:53

was a whiskey lounge that we loved

6:55

going to and they always had

6:57

Postmodern Jukebox on there

7:00

. They'd have these really kind of trendy

7:03

looking music videos

7:05

where it's just somebody done up in like 1920s

7:07

style garb , you know great Gatsby

7:09

type of thing , and they

7:11

would take a song like a grunge

7:14

song from the 90s and just turn

7:16

it into a you know kind of a swing song

7:18

, but like they had incredible voices and

7:21

it was really fun to listen to .

7:23

Yeah , it sounds awesome . I

7:26

think that's what I think music should be about fun and

7:28

enjoyment . Obviously there's worship , but I

7:30

mean as far as like quote unquote

7:32

, second of music , I feel like it should be more about people enjoying

7:34

themselves and sharing that expression

7:36

. You know , sure the

7:39

whole idea of it being an industry is not really

7:41

something I think should happen , but it is what it

7:43

is .

7:44

Yeah , yeah , it's unfortunate . And

7:46

, speaking of industries , we're going to get into the

7:48

churches today and that last one , that

7:51

last one , dovetails into a couple of

7:53

really bad industries . So Very

7:56

true . Yeah , but yeah

7:58

, I am excited to sit down

8:00

and talk about this one with you . I think we've done two

8:02

revelation studies on IDC

8:05

but I mean , over the years you've

8:08

been studying it at length , as we've talked about

8:10

before . I think you have obviously

8:13

a great mind of your own that's influenced

8:15

by Christ

8:17

, the Holy Spirit , but you

8:20

also have a couple of people that you glean

8:22

from . That , I think , are they have some very interesting

8:24

insights , like Preston EB , and I think we've mentioned

8:26

that a few times . Yeah and

8:30

yeah , I draw from whoever I

8:32

see . I

8:36

typically will hear about somebody in an interview and then

8:38

I'll just I'll grab their book

8:40

. More recently I've been

8:42

into Michael S Heiser . Obviously

8:45

, chuck Missler is an influence , although

8:47

I don't absolutely agree with everything they

8:49

say , I think that's one of the most interesting

8:51

insights . But I think the issue with revelation is

8:54

it's difficult to compartmentalize some

8:56

of this information because it's

8:58

all overarching , it's

9:01

all attached , and to try to do two and

9:03

three in a vacuum without discussing a

9:06

dozen other things is going to be a challenge

9:08

. Yeah .

9:11

I think it's a good you know to just

9:13

discuss them and jump

9:16

around as needed as well , because they do all dovetail

9:18

. You know , in a revelation

9:21

three or no , revelation

9:23

two talks about , you know

9:25

, overcomer is not hurt by the second death , when

9:27

technically the second death is not introduced till

9:30

many chapters later . Yeah , so

9:32

you know , it kind of references itself . So

9:35

yeah , whatever , whatever needs to happen , I

9:37

don't mind jumping around or constantly pulling back

9:39

to a more holistic view , things like that .

9:40

Sure , yeah , yeah , I

9:46

think you got a great idea there and if you're

9:48

willing to move a little bit back and forth I am , we'll

9:51

try to keep this . I guess punchy

9:53

maybe within an hour , but who

9:55

knows got allowing it . It'll just be edifying and

9:57

see where it goes right . So

10:02

I had a couple of . The last time we met

10:04

, we talked about the Messiah 2030 video

10:06

and I don't want to go too far down a tangent , but

10:08

I guess they released a second one and

10:10

I had a couple more . Just I wanted

10:13

to pepper the conversation right from the get go

10:15

with a couple more six thousand

10:17

years to the Messiah prophecies , because

10:20

the scripture is replete

10:22

with examples foreshadowings

10:25

rather of a six thousand

10:27

year period from Adam to

10:30

the return of the Messiah . That was

10:32

second coming , as it's sometimes

10:34

known , of Christ . So

10:37

I'll just do these really quickly . Job 519

10:41

, here's a really easy one . He

10:43

will deliver you from six troubles

10:45

in seven . No evil

10:47

shall touch you . I really like that

10:50

, I really like that . And then

10:52

also in Job 42 , 12 through

10:54

17, . You have all

10:56

, and this is it's worth another tangent

10:58

, but I'll just say superficially , you

11:00

have all eight days of the prophetic week

11:03

numerically presented . You have

11:05

, job is rewarded with

11:07

six thousand camels , a thousand

11:09

oxen and a thousand female donkeys

11:12

. So I think that's really

11:14

interesting , just the numbers there are

11:16

. You know a lot of people think

11:18

of these as just perhaps

11:20

superfluous details , but

11:22

they're really really important

11:24

when you pay attention to them and you see how much

11:27

of a pattern there is throughout all

11:29

of the scripture . I think Definitely

11:32

.

11:32

And when you think that the millennium corresponds

11:34

to the Sabbath , I

11:37

find that really interesting too . Even when

11:39

Christ was rebuked by the , I

11:41

think it was like the head of a synagogue who

11:43

said he was annoyed at him healing

11:45

someone on the Sabbath . And he said six days there

11:47

are to cut , that you can come and be healed , but

11:50

not on the Sabbath , basically . And

11:53

Christ said who wouldn't pull your

11:55

oxen I'm paraphrasing but who wouldn't pull your oxen

11:57

out of the ditch on the Sabbath and

12:01

let alone heal somebody ? But

12:04

it's interesting because Christians are pretty unanimous

12:06

in thinking that God's dealings with mankind kind

12:08

of freeze in place once Christ comes

12:10

and there's no more healing

12:12

, there's nothing being done beyond that in the millennium

12:15

. It's basically like your destination set

12:17

and everybody's either completely

12:19

healed or going into condemnation . There's

12:21

no more kind of workings of God and

12:23

I think even from that perspective to

12:26

me that's symbolic of there's going to be continued

12:28

workings in the millennium . There's lots of

12:30

prophecies of the age to come anyway , showing

12:32

that it's still an active age , even though it's the

12:34

Sabbath rest in a sense as well . But

12:37

I think it's interesting that Christ indicated that

12:39

he's still active on the Sabbath

12:41

day . He'll still heal , he'll still bless people

12:43

on the Sabbath , amen .

12:46

I mean , christ is our rest right . So , yeah

12:49

, really good points , really good points . Well

12:53

, so I thought we would get into Revelation

12:56

2 and 3 and perhaps

12:58

we could , if you're into it . I

13:01

had a couple of notes . I don't know if you want to maybe work

13:03

off of those , your wealth of knowledge . I require

13:06

something written on paper . Because

13:09

of my feeble brain , I just

13:11

can't contain anything for very long

13:13

without just slipping out an ear or something . So

13:16

I had a couple of notes . I don't know if you want to build

13:18

off of these , and then maybe I thought we could read

13:20

through the scripture . So

13:22

there are some people who believe that

13:24

chapters 2 and 3 are the most important

13:27

chapters of Revelation

13:29

, because

13:31

I mean , first of all , it's an epistle

13:34

of Christ himself . It

13:37

is a letter personally

13:39

from Christ to the seven churches and

13:42

it acts like a report card . You know , there's a little

13:44

bit of what was done right and

13:47

what needs to be fixed . And also included

13:50

in the letter is where every

13:52

segment of

13:54

each

13:57

church that is addressed is a remedy how

13:59

to fix that thing that needs to be

14:03

remedied , essentially the criticism , how to fix

14:05

the criticism right , as

14:08

we've talked about before , and this is going back into chapter 1

14:10

, it's the only revelation . It's the only book of the

14:12

scripture which promises a blessing

14:14

to the reader , and Revelation

14:16

consists of at least

14:19

that we know , of 800 allusions

14:22

to the Old Testament . So I think just diving

14:24

into Revelation is an

14:26

opportunity to do a study in the entire

14:28

scripture and it

14:31

gives you a glimpse into

14:33

ancient Jewish practice and

14:35

thought and all of that stuff . Right , yeah

14:38

, okay

14:40

. So what else do I have here ? Let

14:44

me look through my notes . Okay

14:49

, so I've got these in bullet form . In

14:51

chapters 2 and 3 , just a couple of things that

14:53

I wrote down Christ is

14:55

among the lampstands on earth

14:57

, and in chapter 4 , the lampstands

15:00

are in heaven and some people

15:02

see this as a suggestion

15:05

that the church will be removed during

15:08

a time of tribulation . I

15:11

don't know if I agree with that necessarily , because

15:14

I think you're on the same page with me . I

15:17

remain neutral on the whole physical rapture

15:19

thing , but I think it's worth noting that in the Gospels

15:22

, christ

15:24

mentions two things One , that the kingdom of heaven is

15:26

invisible to our eyes and that it's here . So

15:29

you know , there's a couple of things that you could

15:31

surmise from that

15:33

. Right , you know that there's

15:35

something , in my opinion , perhaps more

15:38

supernatural going on , regardless

15:40

of what people might think of the eschatological

15:43

segments of Thessalonians

15:46

. I think it's 2nd Thessalonians where

15:49

you have what people think is a mention of

15:51

the rapture . There could be something much more

15:53

supernatural going on there , but

15:55

I am open to

15:57

learning and open to reinterpretation , because I

15:59

think that we won't know until God shows

16:01

us .

16:03

I think my issue of the rapture in general , especially

16:06

the pre-tribulation rapture , one of my

16:08

main issues of it is . It's , I

16:10

think , one of the kind of and I hate referencing pop culture

16:13

too much , but I think one of the red pill moments is

16:15

the red pill in the Matrix , right , yeah

16:17

, I think one of the red , the perhaps

16:20

the biggest red pill moment during a Christian

16:22

walk is the moment where you start to see

16:24

the kingdom as inner rather

16:27

than outer . Now , don't get me wrong , all things

16:29

are going to be subject to God and he is over all

16:31

things , and that includes the visible exterior

16:33

things . But I think there's a point at which

16:35

you just start to understand the inner realities

16:38

of Christ and the reason

16:40

it's so important is things like we are

16:42

seated in the heavenlies of Christ . You know

16:44

, paul tells us you are

16:46

seated in the heavenlies of Christ . That doesn't mean that we're

16:49

kind of . You know , there's a spiritual

16:51

us that's sitting on a throne in the sky somewhere

16:53

and our physical bodies on earth

16:56

. It means that you know the life

16:58

of Christ is in us and we

17:00

are like being seated is

17:02

a metaphor for authority , like

17:04

the authority of Jesus is within us , because

17:06

His Spirit is within us and when

17:09

you realize that Christ truly

17:11

dwells within you , you

17:13

can stop really looking for an exterior God

17:15

. I mean , god is still a God with the exteriors . As far

17:17

as you know , there's things he's controlling

17:19

. You know , I am not

17:22

God , I'm part of Christ's body , but

17:24

the Spirit within me is , you

17:27

know , my life , my reality

17:29

, my , you know my connection to the spirit

17:31

world . And I think the idea

17:33

that , because our bodies might

17:36

be lifted off the earth , that puts us in heaven

17:38

, I think completely , you

17:41

know it , doesn't it completely

17:43

misses the point that we're already spiritual

17:45

beings . As soon as we're made alive , which we already

17:47

have been spiritually , we're already

17:49

spiritual beings . We're already interfaces

17:51

between the spirit realm and the physical realm because

17:53

Christ dwells in us . And if Christ

17:55

dwells in us , we have become the expression of Christ

17:58

in the earth . You know , christ was

18:00

the expression of the Father in the earth because he was a

18:02

physical , tangible , visible

18:04

vessel that the Father fully operated

18:07

through , and we as the church . Now

18:09

that Christ is invisible and he can

18:11

make Himself visible , obviously he has a glorified body

18:13

, but now that he is generally invisible

18:15

, his body is His

18:18

expression , and

18:20

you know , to the earth . So the Spirit of Christ

18:22

is working in all of His body and

18:24

I feel like the whole thing of like we're not in heaven now

18:26

, but if he lifts our bodies up into some cosmic

18:29

location then we'll be in heaven , I

18:31

think kind of misses the point about what heaven is

18:33

and what the spirit realm is . You know , to

18:37

me it's about learning to get out

18:39

of the way of the spirit . You know , like God is refining

18:42

us from almost like burning the flesh

18:44

away so that the spirit of Incan be revealed

18:46

more and more . Ourselves dying

18:48

, you know , learning that Adam is actually crucified

18:50

, that the life of Christ might become our

18:53

life increasingly , and it's this

18:55

whole process and when that process is complete

18:57

the church will shine on the light of the thousand

18:59

sons because there'll be nothing to hinder the glory of

19:01

Christ . And I think like it totally misses

19:04

the point to be like someday my hope

19:06

is that my body is going to be caught up to some cosmic

19:08

location . You know the

19:11

Scriptures don't even talk about us going to heaven when we

19:13

die . The Scriptures really talk about heaven coming

19:15

to earth , like God is now dwelling with man , like

19:17

the climax of Revelation is . I would

19:19

dwell in them , you know . So

19:22

I feel like it almost reverses the whole point , like

19:24

just hoping that someday my miserable Adamic

19:27

flesh will be caught up to a cosmic location

19:29

, even if people think you're going to be glorified . I

19:31

think it really misses a point at what's going on , which is

19:33

God judging our flesh as

19:35

the church . Right now , judgment begins with the house of God

19:37

, god judging our flesh and us learning

19:40

to reckon the flesh is dead and understand

19:42

and experience what it means for Christ's

19:45

life to become our life , and that's so much

19:47

greater than oh , at some point I'll just be

19:49

, you know , lifted up , and so to me

19:51

it's just a change of perspective . The church is being

19:53

looked at from a heavenly perspective , in four , you

19:55

know . Yeah . We're seeing the earthly

19:57

problems in two and three , and in four

19:59

we start to see things from a heavenly perspective . But

20:02

I think , even whatever

20:05

form the rapture does or doesn't take , I think it

20:07

really is missing the point to be a great hope

20:09

like , oh , I'm just the miserable worm here , but someday

20:11

God's going to catch me up and then

20:13

he's also going to zap me and perfect my character

20:15

. God doesn't ever zap anyone to

20:17

perfect their character . He perfects our character here

20:20

on earth with the trials and tribulations and

20:22

constrictions that come along

20:24

with an earthly life . You know , yep , amen

20:27

, yeah , very good points , very good points

20:29

.

20:29

And I'm nothing to add to that . Yeah , I think you make really

20:31

excellent points . I think that it

20:35

I'm still open to . You know

20:37

I'm not stratified in anything

20:39

happening , as I know that you're not either . You know in

20:41

terms of what it might physically look

20:43

like , but

20:45

I've always emphasized and I agree

20:47

more and more as I've gotten into the study , that

20:49

people tend to over-physicalize

20:51

things and

20:56

anthropomorphize things . Where

20:58

they try to make

21:01

these things into

21:04

and I don't know if that's the right

21:06

word , they try to make these things into analogous

21:09

terms that humans would understand and

21:11

it really , it figuratively

21:14

takes God off the throne and makes it much more

21:16

small , like the idea of a physical Jerusalem

21:18

coming out of heaven , and

21:23

it turns it into a diminutive

21:26

thing , right , it tries to put it into the mind of man

21:28

and the mind of man tries

21:30

to express it and it seems so much smaller

21:32

than the glory that will actually be expressed

21:35

in him from God . Does that make sense

21:37

or is that too much ?

21:38

No , that totally makes sense . You know , I knew

21:40

Jerusalem is something I always talk about because

21:42

it even gets you to clue by the angel introducing

21:45

it as the wife of the lamb . So there's

21:48

literally no excuse to see New Jerusalem

21:50

as a real city or

21:52

as a literal city . I also

21:54

think and we're going to go through these , I'm

21:57

sure , but you know , like you referenced the fact

21:59

that there's a remedy in all of these letters For

22:01

the churches that need it . Obviously , two churches don't really

22:04

have any major

22:06

failings , but there's also a promise

22:08

to each church and in some ways the greatest

22:10

promise is to lay to see it . But all

22:12

the promises to me pertain

22:15

to the life of God in us in some way

22:17

. You know the first one , that Tim will come

22:19

, I'll give to eat from the tree of life which

22:22

is in the midst of the paradise of God . Again

22:24

, I mean , a tree of life is Christ , you know

22:26

. Ultimately so

22:29

it's , and fruit of a tree is something that gives you life

22:32

. To me , this is us eating from

22:35

Christ constantly to where he's become our

22:37

life , because , again , the tree of life is in the midst

22:39

of New Jerusalem , which we know is not literal

22:41

. So the tree of life , I actually think is

22:43

parabolic itself . One

22:45

of the big things I always I

22:47

feel like God's talk to me a lot about

22:49

is the two trees . You know how

22:52

. You know there is , I

22:54

don't understand audience and outs of exactly what the

22:56

two trees were as far as it was there any

22:58

physical aspect to them , but I think , the

23:00

spiritual aspect to them . You can just look around

23:02

and see that almost everybody , both in the world

23:05

and in the church , are still eating from

23:07

the tree of the knowledge and good and evil , because most

23:09

people think that life is about choices and

23:11

about right and wrong . But right

23:13

and wrong is just a way of saying good and evil

23:15

, and the tree and there is good

23:18

and there is evil , like the world , eats from a tree of the knowledge

23:20

of good and evil , and Jeffrey Dahmer is terrible

23:22

, terrible evil and there are people that

23:24

don't know Christ that still do good deeds in the flesh

23:26

. There are still good and evil within that tree , but

23:29

the reality of God is life and death . So

23:32

really all of the tree of the knowledge of good and

23:34

evil is death and the tree of

23:36

life is life and we should be feeding

23:38

from the tree of life , which is Christ , so

23:40

he will become our life and the flow of his

23:42

life is what we

23:44

live in and we do everything we see Christ doing

23:46

in the way he did , everything he sees his Father doing , and that

23:48

is true life , like the abundant life of

23:51

the Spirit flowing through us . To

23:53

him who believes , streams of water coming

23:55

out his belly . What Christ was

23:57

saying to the Not

24:02

leaving so much in the flow of the Spirit , you don't really need

24:04

to worry about right and wrong , good and evil

24:07

choices . You're living in the flow of the Spirit , doing whatever

24:09

the Spirit moves you to do . And I

24:11

think everybody in

24:13

the world , obviously , but also mostly in the church

24:16

, still see everything as right and wrong and

24:18

there is good and evil and there is right and wrong as far

24:20

as this action is better than that action . But to

24:22

be consumed with that and have no concept

24:25

of life because you're not eating from the tree of life is

24:27

actually just still death . It's still

24:29

death to spend your whole life just being like if

24:31

I can train Adam to choose

24:33

right , choose right , choose right , choose good , choose

24:35

good and your whole life you're just trying to train your

24:38

Adamic flesh to choose , to do

24:40

good , which you can , adam can still be

24:42

good at times , but there's Christians

24:44

that spend their whole life just trying to restrain Adam

24:46

. Oh , adam's just messed me up again . I've sinned again

24:49

, which is Adam . Christ doesn't sin . So

24:51

again and again , you're trying to train Adam to be good . I'm going

24:53

to make better decisions . I'm going to train Adam to be good . I'm

24:55

going to make better decisions . I'm going to train Adam to be good . And

24:57

it's all the tree of the knowledge of good and

24:59

evil . Still , when you begin

25:02

to learn that there is a life

25:04

in you that cannot sin and that that is actually

25:06

the life that God looks at in you as

25:09

his new creation , and that once you

25:11

learn to kind of be abandoned to that life

25:13

, that life just flows through you more and more

25:15

and more and more and more . That's

25:17

the tree of life and it's a completely different experience

25:20

. You know and I really believe it

25:22

as well , because I feel like I've experienced both

25:24

I know what it's like to eat from that first

25:26

tree and I know what it's like to eat from the second tree , and I really

25:29

believe most of the church , as

25:31

well as the world , is still eating from the tree of knowledge and

25:33

good and evil . They're still trying to make Adam good

25:35

enough to deserve God , instead

25:37

of understanding that there is a new creation within

25:39

us that and that Adam is not destined

25:42

to . You know , adam is

25:44

not destined to be cleaned up and rehabilitated

25:46

. Instead , it's a new creation in us

25:48

that is destined to gradually

25:50

grow in us , a seed that germinates and grows

25:52

and , when it reaches fulfillment , is going to be the image

25:55

of Jesus Christ . I mean , it's a radically

25:57

different experience to the tree of knowledge of good and

25:59

evil and I think you know those promises

26:01

tend to pertain to that . You know the first one's about

26:04

the tree of life . The second one's , the

26:06

second one's you won't be hurt

26:08

by the second death and obviously that means you're fully

26:10

abiding in his life . The third

26:12

promise is hidden . You know , or give someone

26:15

a hidden manna and a white stone and a new

26:17

name . The manna is the

26:19

bread from heaven , which is Christ . The new name

26:21

is a new nature , which is God's nature , written

26:23

in your heart . I mean , and you go on and

26:25

on and you know I'll

26:27

give him . The fourth letter says I hear overcomes

26:29

. We have power over the nations . This is the authority

26:31

of the spirit . You

26:33

know each one is like really it's

26:36

making a promise about . It's not like

26:38

I'm going to give you this heavenly reward . It's

26:40

a token from like a heavenly arcade that you

26:42

can redeem . It's it's promises

26:44

about you becoming an overcomer

26:47

, becoming someone that completely resembles

26:49

Christ and authority in how they

26:51

live , in everything you know , to where

26:53

you can't be hurt by the , by the lake of purification

26:56

. You can't be . You

26:58

know . You have the full authority of the spirit because

27:00

you've grown in complete maturity . You have that new nature

27:02

to white stone . You eat the bread from heaven which

27:04

is Jesus Christ . All these promises

27:06

are to what you will resemble . You

27:09

resemble Christ when you overcome . They're absolutely

27:11

, stunningly wonderful promises . But

27:13

it all pertains to that tree of life which is in the first

27:16

promise and we're not going to get there

27:18

by being obsessed with cleaning up Adam

27:20

. And the irony is , when you stop obsessing

27:22

of cleaning up Adam , when you stop obsessing about

27:24

the tree of knowledge of good and evil , you

27:26

actually stop sinning effortlessly

27:29

. It doesn't mean you never sin because Adam

27:31

still rears up . You know the

27:33

flesh still rears up . But it's

27:35

a lot more effortless to not sin when you're eating

27:37

from the tree of life and in you

27:40

know connecting to that flow

27:42

of Jesus Christ within you . Like Paul said , you

27:44

know it's Christ in me . Now

27:46

you know it's not I that lives , but Christ

27:48

in me . When you get to that consciousness , even if it's

27:51

just spotty , and you're learning it to

27:53

be in that consciousness more , it's

27:55

effortless because it's Jesus living through you . And

27:57

a lot of Christians haven't even learned that

27:59

as a message or heard that as a message . They're still

28:02

desperately trying to clean up Adam , desperately

28:04

upset when Adam fails them again . You know

28:06

, I'm still struggling with the same sin and I

28:09

keep just like clenching my fists and bowing

28:11

. I'm going to do better next time . I'm going to be good , I'm going to

28:13

make a better choice when I'm in this situation next time

28:15

. It's like you're not going to be saved from

28:17

your , from your besetting sins as a believer

28:20

by making better choices . You're going to be saved

28:22

from your besetting sins by being in touch

28:24

with the flow of Jesus Christ within you , which effortlessly

28:27

doesn't seem , because that new creation can't sin and

28:29

it's , and it's completely

28:31

scriptural . This is not some ethereal new age

28:33

nonsense , it's completely scriptural . But

28:36

it's something that most Christians miss

28:38

and they end up , just you know , constantly

28:40

struggling , constantly struggling because they

28:43

haven't even been told that they can really connect

28:45

to the Holy Spirit of Innamen in a way to where they're

28:48

eating from the tree of life , or beginning at least

28:50

beginning , to learn to eat from the tree of life

28:52

.

28:53

Amazing points . They are really , really amazing points

28:55

. I have nothing to add to it , but other

28:57

than to point out that Michael can go

28:59

off book a lot easier on this one than I can

29:01

. Let

29:05

me pull out my script again and I'll continue

29:07

on my end . But yeah , I think those

29:09

, those points are so fantastic about not

29:12

focusing so much

29:14

on eating from the tree of good and the

29:16

knowledge of good and evil and focusing on

29:18

cleaning up the old Adam , but rather feeding

29:21

on Christ and essentially

29:23

allowing him to clean clean you right

29:25

and to make you more in his image . I think , yeah

29:28

, really amazing points . All

29:34

right . Well , yeah , I guess , before

29:36

jumping in , the last few bullets that I

29:38

had were just on the some

29:42

of the unique properties of these churches

29:45

. And you know , obviously

29:48

some people ask why , why these churches and not some

29:50

other churches like Jerusalem or Antioch

29:53

or what were some other major churches back then Rome

29:56

. You know why , why , why these

29:58

seven churches ? And

30:00

you know , obviously they have homo-elitic applications

30:03

. So each , each letter , or

30:05

each , each church addressed

30:07

, at the very beginning , it says he that

30:09

has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches

30:12

. So it's clearly not

30:14

not just addressed

30:16

to the historical churches , which did indeed

30:18

have the problems that are being raised

30:21

. But it's it's meant for everyone to

30:23

to read and listen and understand

30:25

. As you said , these are all things that

30:27

are meant to correct us and to to

30:30

provide edification . And

30:32

then the final one , I think is a little more controversial

30:35

, the final application . I think you and I have

30:37

discussed this a little bit . I think it's kind of interesting . But

30:39

there

30:42

are some people who hold the opinion that these

30:45

seven churches in this order

30:47

also are a foreshadowing

30:50

of church history throughout the

30:53

2000 years , into the return of Christ or

30:55

the millennial reign of Christ , and

30:57

I heard recently I thought this was

30:59

kind of interesting One of the indications of that

31:01

is that the promise

31:04

to the overcomer , the place

31:07

of that , changes within each

31:09

depending on what

31:11

church is being addressed . So the first three it's

31:13

in the post script and it

31:15

almost indicates a past tense , according

31:18

to some people , and I don't . I don't lean too heavily into that

31:20

. I just think it's kind of interesting , almost

31:22

as if to say that those

31:24

churches , while spiritually

31:27

they still may be present on earth , the

31:30

, the core of that

31:32

church , is really kind of historical

31:34

and it's not really with us as much , whereas

31:37

the , the promise

31:39

to the overcomer , is in the body . I believe

31:41

in the remaining churches

31:43

, almost as if to say that

31:46

the , the

31:48

great majority of that church , is physically

31:51

still on earth . I'm not sure if I'm wording this very

31:53

well . It should be mentioned that

31:55

I had about three hours of sleep last night , so

31:58

I didn't even know we were going to have this , this

32:00

get together . But I was so pleased to find out Michael

32:02

could join . So if I'm stumbling over

32:04

my words , at least I have an excuse to lean

32:06

on . But what are your thoughts

32:08

on ? On that , the prophetic

32:10

application of these churches ? I mean

32:12

, we're going to get into it , but , um , I

32:15

think that there's some interesting parallels

32:17

there . I think the most most interesting is gonna be in Thyatira

32:20

. When we get to that , maybe I'll bring it up , and I'm sure you're

32:22

well aware of it . But have

32:25

you heard this before ? Have we discussed it before ?

32:28

Yeah , we have . Yeah , and I , I think , goes

32:30

about saying I know you've agreed to this as well

32:32

that like these , you

32:35

know , seven aspects are always gonna exist

32:37

, even if there is a prominence in an era . Like

32:39

you know , the persecuted church , I

32:41

mean as a , there's an argument the true church

32:43

has always been persecuted because even when the

32:45

visible church was the Catholic

32:47

Church and they're burning people at the stake you know

32:49

a lot of people they were burning at the stake in the Middle Ages

32:51

were the true church . You know , yeah

32:54

, you know I've read and again , this is

32:56

something that's just hearsay , I haven't

32:58

really , you know , confirmed this blood for red

33:00

that more people , more Christians , were persecuted

33:03

or martyred in the 20th century , then all other

33:05

19 centuries combined . But I

33:07

guess with that you would have to , you

33:09

know , have a disclaimer that the earth's population

33:12

has grown so much as a percentage

33:14

of Christians . You know that

33:16

the early persecuted church had a higher

33:18

percentage of Christians being persecuted , like so

33:20

, even with all the people that remarked , and it's when the of century

33:23

. You know , you have so many Christians

33:25

in Western countries that lived

33:27

in peace and quiet , basically , but a whole 20th

33:30

century and never Were persecuted

33:32

for their faith . You know properly as far as

33:34

like persecuted to death for their faith . So that's

33:36

interesting . There's there's a lot of caveats

33:38

there , but , um , yeah , I think it's quite

33:40

feasible , but obviously and I know , like I

33:42

said , I think you've agreed this before it'd have to be more

33:45

. You know the prominent aspect

33:47

, if it was because there's always

33:49

Believers are always being persecuted

33:51

somewhere . You know there's always , you

33:54

know there's . You know the laid-as-see

33:56

. You know I think

33:58

laid-as-see in the LA has applied a lot because

34:01

of how the Protestant

34:03

Church is behaving . You know telly evangelists

34:05

and all of that . But yeah , when you think about

34:07

it , that attitude has been in the Catholic

34:09

Church for a long time . They've had riches . You

34:12

know the pomp and Ceremony

34:15

and riches of the Vatican sure have

34:17

been around , have been around for a long time . So there's

34:19

, though there's there's some , you know there's definitely some

34:21

nuance to it as well , yeah , I'm not at all

34:23

opposed to it . As a theory , I think there's , but

34:27

I think it'd be more . Like you know , Certain

34:29

aspects might be more problem than the certain times

34:31

you know really good points .

34:33

Well , I thought I might read a little bit . I'll

34:35

do Ephesus first , but I'm

34:37

gonna be reading from the new King James version

34:39

. I feel that , as CSB

34:42

right now , I would say is my rather the Holman

34:44

CSB is my favorite Translation

34:46

. That's not say it's perfect

34:48

. I think there's actually a better translation

34:51

that I've been meaning to read more of . It's

34:53

from David Bentley Hart , who

34:56

he , he

34:58

, believes . I think he , his theology

35:00

, aligns a lot more with you , especially

35:03

considering the book that you just wrote . But

35:05

he , he

35:07

tends to agree with you on some of those

35:10

matters like Was

35:13

it you would you call it ? Is that universal salvation

35:16

, where you , you know the

35:18

?

35:18

universal reconciliation . Ephesians

35:22

God was reconciling the world to himself in

35:24

Christ , yeah , and that Jesus has

35:26

actually taken away to send the world rather

35:28

than bringing it back when you know at

35:30

certain times . But sure , I'm

35:32

slightly aware of him because I think I saw an interview

35:34

and where ironically I was I was disagreeing

35:36

with some of the stuff he said yeah . But

35:39

so I don't . I don't know that much , because I think he

35:41

was talking about I think it's all

35:43

about women priests in it . What

35:46

do you say about ? who's a completely different subject

35:49

, but I'm definitely you know aware of him tangentially

35:52

so .

35:54

As far as I know , he converted to Greek orthodoxy

35:56

, so I don't . Is he he so

35:58

he's okay with women priests , or what is his

36:01

deal ? I ?

36:02

Just know , in the video is basically saying he was

36:04

saying that women are better priests . Oh

36:07

, that they're not

36:09

, just they should be priests , but they're better

36:11

priests than men can possibly make , which

36:13

I get it to a degree . I think

36:15

women are really , you know

36:17

, often given a real doubt or really hard

36:19

hand , even even in the West , where

36:21

women are often Reverenced

36:24

, you know , as like to the , to

36:26

the , to a wrong degree objectified you know

36:28

a lot of time . But but

36:30

women still have to fight against a lot

36:32

, you know . I mean , if we're being honest , it's

36:35

easy to kind of complain about oh , you

36:37

know , I held open a door for a woman

36:39

and she got mad at me , or something you know

36:41

. Silly little things , but compared to , you know

36:43

, I would , feminism means women get mad

36:45

when you hold a door open from , or something like that . But I mean

36:47

, ultimately women do are

36:49

dealt a really rough hand and have so much to offer and

36:52

Often have more moral courage than

36:54

men if you look at the fact that the women

36:56

were the ones that stuck around for the crucifixion

36:58

. Yeah and I think we're rewarded with

37:00

being the first witnesses of the resurrected

37:03

Christ . Do you think you think

37:05

how women ? Women were treated at the time Basically

37:08

, often regarded as almost chatter or livestock

37:10

. You know , in the ancient world at times , and maybe

37:13

not to that degree , but you

37:16

know , you think , the amazement

37:18

of you know , women being

37:20

the first witnesses of Jesus

37:22

Christ , the most fantastic

37:24

, beautiful event has ever happened and ever will

37:26

happen in the timeline of Earth's history , and

37:29

women were the first to behold it . You know yeah

37:31

, pretty music God has definitely honored women enough

37:33

and I hate I never actually weighed

37:35

into the whole . You

37:37

know , can , can women do x , y , z

37:40

in church thing , because I think it I

37:42

don't know some sometimes to me I think it misses

37:44

the point , because sometimes I think it's about what

37:47

modern church is structured as , like can women

37:49

be a head pastor ? I don't think head pastor is a biblical

37:51

Roll

37:53

. You know so and

37:55

so as far as I seen a New Testament

37:57

church , there was , like Paul said

37:59

, that two or three prophets speak and if something's

38:01

revealed to one that the neck , that

38:04

the other one keeps silent . You know

38:06

, in other words , there was a plurality

38:08

of people that were gifted to speak , that were almost like

38:10

having this conversation and the spirit

38:12

would be speaking through them . Well , I

38:14

know that . You know

38:17

the script . The scriptures reference

38:19

women prophesying because it references if a

38:21

woman prophesies or a head uncovered , and I don't

38:23

really understand A head covering thing . I

38:25

just have that on the side if I ever understand it . I

38:27

understand it . I don't understand it at all , but

38:29

it says if a woman pray , praise

38:32

or prophesies or a head uncovered , therefore women

38:34

can prophesy . It also says that Philip

38:36

had Four daughters that were prophetesses . Therefore

38:38

, women can prophesy . So I

38:40

think , with the way the New Testament church was clear

38:42

, women were clearly involved and clearly able

38:45

to prophesy and things like that . So I

38:47

think a lot of the argument is based around

38:49

, you know , a structure of the church

38:51

that we don't have have anymore and I

38:53

don't there . There are other things Paul says that

38:55

I Confess I just don't understand

38:58

exactly where the balance is on certain things . But

39:00

I think so many arguments is like can a woman be a head

39:02

pastor ? And like well , to me I don't think a man should be a

39:04

head pastor because I feel like it's a business role that's

39:06

been created for the way we've structured the

39:08

modern church . It's not something that

39:10

you see in the Bible . So in

39:12

a way it's a pointless discussion because we're we're

39:15

asking about something . It's not a scripture role to

39:17

begin with , and there is a discussion to be had because

39:19

Paul was talking about women , the scriptures

39:21

but but I think some of it

39:23

is a moot point to begin with because it's asking

39:25

about modern , modern

39:28

concepts of church leadership that didn't necessarily

39:30

even exist in the scriptures .

39:32

Well , you know , I think that I would push back just

39:34

a little bit and I know that you know where I'm going

39:36

with this . Obviously , with with the Acts of the Apostles

39:38

Episcopos , pres

39:40

Viteros and the Oconos , bishops

39:43

, priests and deacons are a thing

39:45

I think that you try

39:47

to tether being . I

39:49

think one of the Translations

39:52

of bishop is overseer , I

39:54

Think you , you

39:56

know sorry , was it elder ? I always

39:58

confused what the , the

40:00

modern translations are , but Episcopos

40:03

is bishop , or Latin bishop , and

40:05

pres Viteros is priest . But

40:08

you do you try to tether one of them to

40:10

age , and I think that's a conversation worth

40:13

having , but I think that what

40:15

I think is age .

40:15

I think it's spiritual maturity . Oh , I see

40:17

I see , those are more spiritually advanced

40:20

, but I think the key one for me about that

40:22

is Some of it

40:24

is those are real roles , and I

40:26

think that's where the balance is I'm talking about . Yeah

40:28

. I was talking about certain your roles that

40:31

were in the New Testament church that we don't

40:33

have in the same form nowadays . So we're

40:35

arguing the modern role when , really

40:38

, because we don't even see the church being

40:40

Done in the way it was in

40:42

the New Testament , it's , it's almost a

40:45

moot point because until

40:47

we have the church coming together in the way it

40:49

did come together , we're not even meeting . And

40:52

to what ? To my mind , we're not meeting in a

40:54

biblical way because it's it's

40:56

a business-based hierarchy . What is

40:58

the Protestantism ? You know me , I

41:01

feel like you know . Peter was clear . As far as priesthood

41:03

, I think we're a royal priesthood of believers , I think amen

41:05

to me , the rub of the priesthood

41:08

is a priest is someone that is an interface

41:10

between God and men . So the high

41:12

priest is Christ , and I think the

41:14

issue for me with saying that there can be

41:16

a priesthood within the church is

41:18

that Everybody that has

41:20

Christ in them is the interface between

41:22

God and man . Yeah , yeah you know . So

41:25

if you say priests are between there's

41:27

a thing called a laity and there's a strata

41:30

of what's called priest , and then there's

41:32

God , you're basically saying that there is also

41:34

an interface between God and believers

41:37

.

41:37

So it's yeah , I agree

41:39

. I think that maybe priest is a mistranslation

41:41

, though that is the colloquial term

41:43

, for you know who you have running essentially

41:46

in a Catholic church or an Orthodox church . I think

41:48

that better is is elder

41:50

, so I suppose because

41:52

they and this

41:54

is a completely separate conversation but they don't necessarily

41:57

believe that that is the case , although maybe some Catholics

42:00

do . I completely agree

42:02

that we are . We all are kings and

42:04

priests in Christ . But

42:06

I think that you know

42:09

my first , my first interaction with a congregational

42:11

church was in Hanoi in

42:13

Vietnam , and I lived out there for I don't

42:16

even know how long maybe three and a half , four years and

42:19

we

42:22

attended a congregational church and one

42:24

of the issues was there was an authoritative

42:26

crisis , nobody was in charge

42:28

and therefore no theology stood and we

42:31

saw things get intermingled or people

42:33

attempt to intermingle and

42:35

we'll get to Put

42:38

a gamut that the , the church of the

42:40

, the mixed marriage , right , but we

42:42

saw people try to draw in Things

42:45

like Reiki . I don't know if you're familiar with Reiki

42:47

. Is what it's like ? Some type of hippie crystal

42:50

healing or rock healing . You know they believe

42:52

that and it's true . I mean , scientifically

42:54

, we know that some rocks do have energy

42:56

, but they're

42:58

they're trying to . You know intermingle Reiki

43:01

and like false spirituality

43:03

. And you know other things

43:05

that are completely banded by scripture . Are

43:08

you know the gay marriage

43:10

just ushering in all kinds

43:13

of things that are not allowed

43:15

because , quite frankly , everyone

43:17

was . You know it was , it was , everyone was in

43:19

charge and you had no real spiritual leaders , no elders

43:22

, nobody with spiritual maturity and no

43:24

one with any sort of Theological

43:27

prowess . And I know I'm not giving it to the wise

43:29

and saying you know that , that you know

43:32

someone

43:34

with wisdom is going to , you know , be

43:36

the appropriate leader . But someone with knowledge of Christ

43:39

, someone with the spirit and Someone

43:41

who is an authority should be there

43:43

to kind of govern some of these things .

43:45

That's the key . I think that's the key is spiritual

43:47

leadership . I think spiritual

43:49

is a word that's used Often

43:51

as just like a label on top

43:53

of something that's very airfully . You know

43:55

, I like someone is your spiritual leader

43:58

because you adhere

44:00

to a religious institution and they're high up in

44:02

that religious institution . Therefore they are , and they've

44:04

studied and got a degree . Therefore they are

44:06

qualified to oversee your faith . I

44:08

think that has absolutely zero to do

44:10

with overseeing someone's faith . Being high

44:12

up in a religious institution I mean there's a guy high

44:15

up in the Catholic Church who's talking about Jesus having

44:17

sinned . That guy is officially somebody's

44:19

spiritual leader and saying that Jesus sin . Yeah

44:21

it's got nothing like . So I think a big

44:24

thing is . First Timothy 3 . Right to start . First

44:26

Timothy 3 . It says this is a faithful

44:28

saying if a man desires the position of a bishop

44:30

, he had a desire as a good work

44:32

. This is new King James . That word

44:34

position is not in the Greek and

44:36

this is a way in which translations perpetuate

44:38

ideas of hierarchy and , you

44:41

know , an earthly institution . Why

44:43

put position in what it says in Greek

44:45

is if anyone desires to be an overseer

44:47

, and I think that there are definitely

44:50

these roles , but they are spiritual . When

44:52

it's talking about who is qualified , it says

44:54

a bishop which is an overseer must

44:56

be blameless , the husband of one wife , temperate

44:59

, sober , minded of good behavior , hospitable

45:01

, able to teach , not given to wine

45:03

, not violent , not greedy for money , gentle

45:06

, not course and not cover . To See

45:08

the thread here . It's spiritual character

45:11

. It's somebody that has the character of Christ . If you look

45:13

at the apostles , they weren't the theologians of

45:15

the time , no theologians at the time , with a Pharisee

45:17

the apostles were people that had been with Jesus

45:19

, so the people that had spiritual authority

45:21

. It basically

45:23

, if someone was going , if an apostle like Paul was going

45:25

to appoint an elder , he was going to look for someone

45:28

like this that had the character of Christ , who

45:30

would then oversee somebody else's faith

45:32

without Loading it over them and trying to actually

45:34

take our for authority , in a sense

45:36

, and be like I say jump , you say how high

45:38

yeah . It's someone that was gonna oversee

45:40

. I guess it's like , okay , we're all

45:43

sheep , but we're all sheep that belong to Jesus

45:45

and so Paul would appoint

45:47

overseers that would understand that she belonged

45:49

to Jesus . Where's most people that see

45:51

it as a position and starts thinking the sheep

45:53

belong to them ? If you look at most ministers

45:56

now it's like all they people talk about sheep

45:58

stealing . When people go get attracted

46:00

from one church or another , all he stole my sheep . It's

46:02

like we're all . Jesus is sheep . Everything

46:04

that is done with is is Under

46:07

shepherds . Everything is done with a view

46:09

to understanding the church belongs to him . If

46:11

we're faithful , we're not going to try and ravish the church

46:13

. We're not going to try and hit on the church . We're

46:16

gonna prepare the bride like a unit . You know

46:18

the units that prepared Esther when she

46:20

was getting ready to get married . You know a unit

46:22

could obviously symbolic of someone that can't even touch

46:25

her if they want , if they wanted to , you know . But

46:27

if someone , it's not going to violate the bride

46:29

of Christ , you know , whereas we have

46:31

two centuries of eight people basically

46:33

acting like the bride of Christ is there to

46:35

be hit on , is there to be seduced

46:38

, is there to be bedded . You know , faithful

46:41

spiritual leadership is always going to point people

46:43

to Christ as the full authority . And so

46:46

just because someone's got an agree and rises

46:48

up in a religious institution , that does not give them

46:50

a one eye out of spiritual authority

46:52

. Because you look at Christ , when he came it said

46:54

he taught as one having authority and not as the Pharisees

46:57

it's like . Well , hang on . The Pharisees were

46:59

the highest religious leaders , were together in the Sadducees

47:01

. These were the highest religious leaders

47:04

and most advanced the loans at the time . How

47:06

can you say he did that when he told

47:08

authority it wasn't like them , like so .

47:12

So I , you know , I read William Lane Craig talking

47:14

about this once and he said that what

47:17

they meant by authority was . He

47:19

would often say I , truly

47:22

, I tell you , and he would not be referencing

47:24

the scripture and by doing

47:26

that , you're using yourself as the authority

47:29

, you're using yourself as the basis for which you speak

47:31

. And that was what irked them

47:33

, because he wouldn't say hey , you know , it

47:36

says in Leviticus that you got to do this . He

47:38

would say truly , I tell you , in

47:40

his he was the authority right

47:42

and and and William Lane Craig

47:44

explicated that a little bit better . And the other thing is

47:46

I obviously , to

47:50

use the same word , no authority in in

47:52

ancient Greek . I , you know ancient Greek much better

47:54

than I do , but I also know that there

47:56

are a lot of inferred words , because a

47:59

lot of the ancient Greek was written in shorthand , especially

48:01

Matthew , if I'm not mistaken right . So

48:03

, hearkening back to the mention

48:05

of the Quote-unquote Position

48:08

of the bishop , which you know doesn't exist in

48:10

the Greek , it just says Bishop , or

48:12

if one desires to be a bishop and not desires

48:15

the position of Bishop , I

48:17

think that I Don't know if that's

48:19

as big a fallacy as I would . You know , I

48:24

don't know if it's as big a fallacy as you make it out to be , although

48:27

I agree with every other point you made surrounding

48:29

it , that it is a spiritual thing and it's not

48:31

something that can be merely acquired by a

48:33

diploma , right ? So I

48:36

agree 99% of the way , but

48:38

also I think that there's room for

48:40

there's

48:43

room for it to be a position , but

48:45

just maybe not the way that the church has structured

48:47

it or the Institutional church

48:49

has structured it . So I agree with you almost

48:51

all the way .

48:52

Yeah . I think

48:54

it's a really worthy Discussion

48:57

to hash out . Obviously not necessarily now , because we're on the revelation

48:59

. Yeah , although we're gonna talk about Nicolations , which is quite

49:02

pertinent but let's do it . Yeah

49:06

, I think it's a very worthy conversation and Get

49:10

to the bottom of , because Any

49:12

everybody knows that the thing that is now

49:14

the system is religion , whether it's Catholics

49:17

, whether it's orthodox . Yeah , it's process . Then they all approach

49:19

it differently . I have certain I

49:21

respect orthodoxy more than I respect Catholicism

49:23

, things like that . You know , not exactly

49:25

the same , but but there's still an

49:28

understanding that we're gonna train

49:30

people in our schools , we're gonna give them a degree

49:32

and then we're gonna tell them that they're a leader and then

49:34

you need to submit to them as

49:37

believers . You know there is a

49:39

Given kind of system that

49:41

we're all supposed to adhere to in our religious leadership

49:43

is accepted and

49:46

you know , I think from me it's very

49:48

different . For me is , you know , the

49:51

? I feel like if we're all part

49:53

of body , if the body the all agrees to

49:55

hold to the head , then the head is gonna direct us

49:57

. I've heard so many people say if you

49:59

don't , if you don't have a system

50:01

in place , it's gonna be chaos , and I'm like well , that's

50:04

like saying Christ as the head is chaos . If everyone

50:06

is truly joined to the head , it wouldn't be chaos . Now I

50:08

understand you can get in a subjectivity

50:11

of people saying hey , I'm joined to the head and I'm

50:13

go , I'm smoking dope , but I'm joined to the head and you

50:16

know you can . You know there is an aspect

50:18

where you know you can

50:20

imagine ways in which things can get out of control . But

50:22

at the same time the head , the

50:25

authority of the head , does flow through the body . If

50:27

we are gathered unto Christ , do you thought , like if

50:29

you're a meeting , saying someone's home , and

50:31

people start to speak and there's a liberty for

50:33

everybody to speak , you could tell them a

50:36

few minutes who's been with Christ , who's been with him

50:38

a long time , who has authority in

50:40

just the way they behave and and

50:42

their character ? Anyone

50:44

with discernment it's not hard to tell . You know

50:46

, I'll just , you know , say that . But no

50:51

, no , not at all , not at all . But

50:53

we are talking about Nicolaitians here . Even

50:55

within Ephesus , you know , he said one of the . Perhaps

50:58

the only nice thing he said from them is that

51:00

no , he says Well , do you ?

51:02

want me to go ahead and read through it real quick and then Okay

51:05

. So to the , to the angel

51:07

of the church of Ephesus right , these

51:09

things says he who holds the seven stars

51:12

in his right hand , who walks in the

51:14

midst of the seven golden lampstands . I

51:16

know your works , your labor , your patience

51:18

, and that you cannot bear those

51:21

who are evil . And you

51:23

have tested those who say they are apostles

51:25

and are not , and have found them liars . And

51:29

you have persevered and have

51:31

patience and have labored for

51:33

my name's sake and have not become weary . Nevertheless

51:36

, I have this against you that you

51:38

have left your first love . Remember

51:41

, therefore , from where you have fallen

51:43

, repent and do the first

51:45

works , or else I will come to

51:47

you quickly and remove your lampstand from its

51:49

place unless you repent . But

51:52

this you have , which you hate

51:54

the deeds of the Nicolaitans , which

51:57

I also hate . He who has

51:59

an ear , let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches

52:01

. To him who overcomes , I

52:04

will give to eat from the tree of life which

52:06

is in the midst of the paradise of

52:08

God . Alright , nicolaitans

52:13

. So they were

52:16

real people . But I think the

52:18

common translate or the common perspective and

52:20

I tend to agree with this Nico in

52:22

Greek is victory . Leotons

52:24

would be , as in laity is , in the common folk

52:27

. So those who rule over the common folk , why

52:30

would you agree that it's the king

52:32

of England and the Pope ? I'm

52:35

sorry , I'm backing you into the corner . It was funnier

52:37

in my head when I said it . I'm

52:42

teasing you . I'm teasing you because I so Nicolaitin's

52:47

crisis . He does not

52:49

like the clergy

52:51

ruling over the people

52:53

, right . And

52:56

he kind of breaks

52:59

down that you know basically

53:02

our marching orders when he washes the feet of the

53:04

disciples . And you have , in

53:07

my opinion , the two biggest

53:09

versions of this are the Pope and the King

53:11

of England , the Pope obviously being

53:13

over the Catholic Church , the King of England being the head

53:15

of the Church

53:18

of England , which I guess you could say is would

53:21

that be , in terms of institutions , the pinnacle

53:23

of Protestantism or what would that be exactly

53:25

?

53:26

Well , at this point it's like ruling over a cemetery

53:28

, basically . Yeah , yeah . No

53:30

, I agree with that aspect . I think the King of England

53:32

has a right to rule England , but , yeah

53:35

, he shouldn't be regarded as any kind

53:37

of spiritual authority . No , no , no . I

53:39

totally agree with that . And there's only one . Well

53:41

, I say there's one spiritual King , but we know he's making

53:43

us into kings as well , so that's why he's

53:45

King of Kings , you know . But

53:48

, yeah , charles is not someone

53:50

that anyone should be . No , no , no

53:52

. Now , I do think Elizabeth was a great example

53:54

and I think she was an earnest

53:57

Christian , sure , but I still think the role

53:59

is , I just don't think . I

54:02

just don't think the Church is an institution .

54:05

Definition is oh , I

54:07

lost your . What's that ? I lost

54:09

your audio there for a second .

54:12

Yeah , I just , I think , like the definition of the Church

54:14

is important . I think legions of

54:16

generations have grown up with the idea that the Church

54:18

is an institution and it's the building on the

54:20

street corner . And , you know

54:22

, in the New Testament it was the Ecclesia

54:25

that called out , you know , and it was the people

54:27

, you know the people , the body

54:29

of Christ , not just the Church , but the

54:31

temple . You are the temple of the living God

54:33

, you know , and that whole

54:35

point of the Church is that

54:37

we are . You know , the

54:40

body of Christ is a very real . It's

54:44

metaphorical in one sense , because

54:46

I'm not literally , you know , a toenail

54:49

, but it's very real in another

54:51

sense , in that a body is a vehicle

54:53

for expressing something that cannot be seen . We

54:56

cannot , like I said earlier , we cannot see Christ

54:58

. The body of Christ is supposed to be the

55:00

vehicle for the invisible , christ being

55:03

manifest and seen , just like Christ , you

55:05

know , came to do as

55:07

the vehicle of the Father . So

55:10

, you know , it's the called out and it's

55:12

the priesthood , and I feel like everything

55:14

, like there's another scripture , an

55:16

old , dig it out here , where it talks about you

55:18

know , I think we're talking . Well

55:22

, let me just dig it out , because it's talking about the

55:24

reason why all these

55:26

gifts are given . I

55:29

want to say yeah

55:36

, so Ephesians 4 . So

55:38

Ephesians 4 , you

55:40

know , you

55:42

know , everyone talks about the fivefold ministry

55:45

and he gave . He himself gave some to

55:47

the apostles , some prophets , some evangelists and

55:49

some pastors and teachers . Four

55:51

, the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry

55:54

. Four , the edifying

55:56

of the body of Christ , till we

55:59

all come to the unity of the faith and of

56:01

the knowledge of the Son of God , to a perfect

56:03

man , to the measure of the stature of the fullness

56:05

of Christ . Amazing

56:07

I mean amazing passage

56:09

. There . It tells us , you know , he gave

56:11

some of us for all these different way to gifts , but

56:14

it's for the saints in general that

56:17

all of us would be equipped for the work of ministry

56:19

, so that we would all be able to ministry , but

56:21

also that the whole body would be edified together

56:23

. And it's until we all come to the unity

56:25

of the faith which is interesting because it shows

56:27

we're not necessarily

56:30

there yet and to the

56:32

knowledge of the Son of God , to a perfect man , to

56:34

the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ , all these gifts

56:36

are given that the body of Christ would

56:38

come to resemble him and be able to minister

56:40

him to the world , and it's

56:43

not that so . My

56:46

thing is like if these ministries

56:48

are functioning correctly , they

56:50

should not all be about themselves . They

56:53

should be about the people

56:55

that are being ministered to

56:57

within . The body should be growing . If

56:59

God gave these ministries for this purpose

57:02

, we should see the evidence of these individuals

57:04

in these ministries being godly ministers

57:06

by the growth of the saints that they're

57:08

ministering to . The

57:11

saints under them are becoming able to minister themselves

57:13

. The saints under them are coming to the perfect

57:15

man , to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and

57:17

growing in Christ . It's not

57:20

really the case in most churches . Most churches

57:22

exist for the vision of whoever the

57:24

head honcho is , and if you go

57:26

in there today and if you go in there 10 years

57:28

from now , there won't be a difference in the sermons

57:30

. There won't be a difference in the growth of

57:33

the congregation . Anyone that grows too much is

57:35

likely to outgrow the congregation

57:37

. It's not a reflection

57:39

of this passage . Anyway , you know

57:42

God has specific

57:44

purpose for giving these ministries and

57:47

it is for the saints to grow . It's for

57:49

the body to grow into the full stature of Christ

57:51

. That's the destiny of the church to fully

57:53

resemble Christ so that the world might see

57:56

. You know , christ said he who has

57:58

seen me has seen the Father . Our destiny

58:00

is for people to be able to point to

58:02

the body and say he who has seen the body has seen

58:04

Christ , you know , and he who has seen Christ has seen the

58:06

Father . Therefore , there is a complete

58:08

flow of expression from the Father through

58:10

Christ into His body and out to

58:12

the world . And I think

58:14

so much of that gets lost in hierarchy

58:17

, you know , and

58:20

earthly considerations , and earthly

58:22

, it's just the

58:24

very earthly system , and I don't want to focus too

58:26

much on the system , you know , except that obviously we are

58:28

in Nicolation , so we're talking about

58:30

the revelation . So there is a certain . I

58:32

don't want to get too bogged down in it because we're talking

58:35

, you know , we're talking about the revelation

58:37

of Christ Himself , but I do think , yeah , they're

58:39

all really brilliant . There's a lot of these passages

58:41

that are so euphoric and

58:43

so climactic about

58:45

what it's all about and they're just , if

58:48

we're being honest , they're not reflected in what

58:50

we see out there and I don't buy this whole

58:52

. If you see a perfect church , don't go to it because

58:54

then it won't be perfect . It's like no , this system is

58:56

. It's broken . You know it is

58:59

a broken , broken system . It shouldn't even be a system

59:01

and it's not

59:03

filled with . I've known a lot of ministers

59:05

and I love them all there's . You know , I would have

59:08

lunch with any of these guys from the past , but

59:10

I'm not naming names . I'm not saying this to be mean

59:13

spirited , but I've known a lot of

59:15

pastors that didn't really have much faith

59:17

and struggled to even have any faith

59:19

and were in a position that

59:21

didn't feel natural to them and weren't

59:24

really gifted and hadn't really

59:26

been with Christ in a way that justified

59:28

them overseeing anyone else's faith or

59:31

even teaching other people . You know it's

59:33

a position you can aspire to as a career . You

59:35

can get a degree and then you can go

59:37

be a spiritual leader of people . That's not

59:39

. That's not beneficial

59:41

to the body .

59:42

I agree , no , I agree completely . I agree completely

59:45

. All right , I'm

59:47

going to do the next one . And

59:50

to the angel of the church of Smyrna

59:52

Wright , these things says the

59:54

first and the last who was dead and

59:56

came to life . So , before

59:59

we go any further , really quickly , I think this

1:00:02

is a really interesting point For

1:00:04

anyone who's still stuck on it . You

1:00:07

have a couple of

1:00:09

deviations from

1:00:12

Christianity in the form of Mormonism

1:00:14

or the LDS church and Jehovah's

1:00:16

Witnesses , who believe in

1:00:18

one of the earliest church heresies , which

1:00:21

was started by Arias . I believe that

1:00:23

Christ is not

1:00:26

co-eternal with God the Father

1:00:28

. There are so

1:00:30

many indications throughout the scriptures , but this is

1:00:32

one of the most obvious ones the

1:00:35

first and the last who was dead

1:00:37

and came to life . It doesn't get more clear

1:00:39

than that that he is the

1:00:41

first and the last and was dead and came to life . All

1:00:44

right onward . I know your works

1:00:46

, tribulation and poverty , but you are

1:00:48

rich and I know the blasphemy

1:00:50

of those who say they are Jews and are not , but

1:00:52

are of the synagogue of Satan . Do not

1:00:54

fear any of those things which you are about

1:00:57

to suffer . Indeed , the devil is

1:00:59

about to throw some of you into prison that

1:01:01

you may be tested and you will have tribulation

1:01:03

ten days . Be faithful

1:01:05

unto death and I will give you the

1:01:07

crown of life . He who has an ear , let

1:01:09

him hear what the spirit says to the churches

1:01:11

. He who overcomes

1:01:14

shall not be hurt by the second

1:01:16

death . All

1:01:18

right , so Smyrna is synonymous

1:01:20

with myrrh , which

1:01:23

is something people were

1:01:25

embalmed in in death . I

1:01:27

think it's really interesting that Christ

1:01:30

was given Gold , frankincense and myrrh right

1:01:32

, and some people see those as parallels

1:01:34

of his glory

1:01:36

. In the Gold , the Frankincense

1:01:39

, I believe , was his earthly ministry and the myrrh was

1:01:41

his crucifixion . And I believe

1:01:43

in Isaiah it says something like

1:01:45

the Lord will be given

1:01:47

in the millennium . The Lord will be given

1:01:49

Gold and Frankincense , but there's

1:01:52

no mention of myrrh , obviously because his death

1:01:54

is once and behind him . Just

1:01:57

speculation . But I think it's quite poetic and

1:01:59

I kind of like it . So

1:02:02

what are your thoughts on this one ?

1:02:05

I think the most interesting thing is he who overcomes

1:02:07

shall not be hurt by the second death , and the

1:02:09

reason I think that's the most interesting is that most

1:02:14

Christians just think that every Christian has

1:02:16

the same reward and that our reward is

1:02:18

basically God thanking us for quote-unquote

1:02:21

choosing him and that when we go to heaven

1:02:23

we get some kind of mansion type deal

1:02:25

and harp , but there's like a generic reward

1:02:27

you get Just for God being pleased

1:02:29

that you decided to be a Christian . I

1:02:32

don't believe being born again

1:02:34

is about our choice . Personally , I think that

1:02:36

it's God's choice and he purposed it

1:02:38

within himself and the foundation of the world . But be

1:02:41

that as it may , one of the reasons all

1:02:43

these letters are interesting is because the

1:02:46

promises are not to Christians . The promises

1:02:48

are to overcomers and anyone who can read

1:02:50

all of these letters and think that

1:02:52

everybody he was talking to all overcame

1:02:55

in the end . It's

1:02:57

just not the case . I mean , if you look

1:02:59

at let's just take a hypothetical person

1:03:01

, you know a tele-evangelist

1:03:04

, not a literal tele-evangelist , a hypothetical

1:03:06

tele-evangelist .

1:03:07

You should give him a make-believe name like Schmoll Schmostin

1:03:10

. How about that ?

1:03:12

Let's just call him , you know , I don't know , Mr

1:03:16

Coinseeker , I don't know , but anyway

1:03:18

, he does believe in

1:03:20

Jesus . Ultimately . He

1:03:22

does believe in Jesus , but

1:03:24

he prostitutes that belief

1:03:27

into a principle of

1:03:29

like word of faith or whatever , to where

1:03:31

he becomes very rich and then he takes those

1:03:34

riches as godliness and

1:03:36

then he dies . He does believe in

1:03:38

Jesus and he dies having

1:03:40

just done nothing but fleece the sheep for decades

1:03:42

. This has happened

1:03:44

, you know , this has happened . That

1:03:47

man is not an overcomer , I'm sorry , you

1:03:49

know he's not an overcomer . He's going to

1:03:51

be judged and

1:03:54

so not all people overcome

1:03:56

. These promises are to a subset

1:03:58

of believers . Listen to Paul . Paul

1:04:00

says I do not yet regard myself as

1:04:02

having apprehended what this

1:04:05

is . Paul , who has beaten , who has , you know

1:04:07

, given the lashes

1:04:09

, who was stoned and left for dead

1:04:11

, who was shipwrecked , who suffered

1:04:13

all kinds of persecutions . And he didn't

1:04:16

regard himself as having apprehended yet . And

1:04:18

yet we in the 21st century

1:04:21

sit there watching our favorite secular TV

1:04:23

shows and eating our steak dinners and being

1:04:25

, oh , I can't wait for God to give me my reward . I'm

1:04:27

not trying to make this about works . Sure . Paul

1:04:30

was saying I haven't totted up enough works to please

1:04:32

God , but he's understood that

1:04:34

our life is a progressive , you

1:04:36

know , sanctification if you will of Christ being

1:04:39

formed in us to perfection . I don't know

1:04:41

what the demarcation

1:04:43

point is for an overcomeer versus someone that doesn't overcome , but

1:04:46

I believe it has to do with being

1:04:48

formed into the image of Christ . To

1:04:50

a certain degree , you know . Beyond

1:04:52

a certain degree , you know , I think

1:04:54

degree .

1:04:54

I agree though I think there

1:04:56

are gradations when he said he has not

1:04:58

apprehended . I think that the

1:05:03

modern church , especially

1:05:05

the Church of the Reformation , tends to

1:05:07

oversimplify things

1:05:10

. And I think that you know

1:05:12

, when you have a scripture that exists

1:05:14

that says something the effective love covers

1:05:16

a multitude of sins . Why would you need

1:05:18

multitude of sins covered if you know it was

1:05:20

kind of once and done by simply accepting

1:05:23

Christ ? And you know there

1:05:25

is something . Obviously

1:05:27

we're not doing it ourselves . We are

1:05:29

not our own salvation . Christ is our salvation . Faith

1:05:32

in him is what's

1:05:34

going to get us there . But I mean

1:05:36

, james said that you

1:05:38

know , essentially , love and works

1:05:41

, faith and works walk hand in hand . I'm sorry , go

1:05:43

on .

1:05:44

Works is the evidence of faith . Ultimately

1:05:47

, I think the thing is getting in the right way around

1:05:49

. James is saying make sure you

1:05:51

have them the right way around , like , don't go out

1:05:53

to do at work that's not based on

1:05:55

faith and be justified by the work . But understand

1:05:58

that if you have faith , the works have to follow

1:06:00

. You know , christ appointed . He said I've

1:06:02

appointed you . You know , or

1:06:04

I think Paul was saying God appointed us

1:06:06

good works that we may walk in them . And Christ

1:06:08

chose the twelve apostles that they might

1:06:10

go bare much fruit . And you know

1:06:13

, philippians says work out your

1:06:15

salvation , because it's God that works in you to

1:06:17

will and to do to his good pleasure . So by his spirit

1:06:19

it dwells in us in a new creation . He's working

1:06:21

as well into us . But it has to be worked out

1:06:23

in our experience . But you

1:06:26

know so it is all about

1:06:28

this and this is where the Orthodox

1:06:30

have it right . It's a progression . The

1:06:32

New Testament talks about salvation in past

1:06:35

, present and future tense . It

1:06:37

says you were saved , it says you are being saved and

1:06:39

it says you will be saved . It doesn't make

1:06:41

sense unless you understand it's a whole process . You

1:06:43

know the key , the

1:06:46

reason this is so interesting . So we

1:06:48

agree that there's only some people overcome , others don't

1:06:50

. The only people in the

1:06:52

entire scripture who are said to not take

1:06:54

part in a second death then are the overcomers . If

1:06:57

he will overcome , shall not be hurt by the second death , then

1:06:59

the Christian that doesn't overcome

1:07:02

is going to be part of the second death , is going to be in the

1:07:04

lake of fire . And obviously for me you

1:07:06

know this is one of the texts I use when I'm talking

1:07:08

about hell and salvation and

1:07:10

the meaning of it all , Because I believe that I

1:07:12

mean the Greek word for fire was P-U-R

1:07:15

, which is where we get purification from . Fire was

1:07:17

an ancient purification agent

1:07:19

. So for me , the lake of fire

1:07:22

is the ultimate purification . It

1:07:24

is judgment , it is correction , it's

1:07:26

symbolic of God being a consuming fire and

1:07:28

consuming all the chaff in our character and

1:07:30

it's a process . And the reason the scripture

1:07:32

is so important is it shows that Christians

1:07:34

will be in the second death . Whatever it is , whether

1:07:37

it's metaphorical , whether it's literal , there will

1:07:39

be Christians in that lake of fire because

1:07:42

only he who overcomes shall

1:07:44

not be hurt by the second death . If every

1:07:46

Christian was not going to be hurt by the second death

1:07:48

as soon as they received Christ the first

1:07:50

time , it would just say it won't even

1:07:53

be a promise to an overcomer , because it's like , hey , this is

1:07:55

not a promise to an overcomer , this is something

1:07:57

that's already baked into

1:07:59

our inheritance as Christians , you know . I

1:08:01

think it ties in very well to 1 Corinthians

1:08:04

3 , where it talks about anyone

1:08:06

that builds on the foundation of Christ with Wood

1:08:08

, hay and Stubble . The day will try

1:08:10

their work and their work . You know , what they've

1:08:12

built on Christ will be tried by fire , and if their

1:08:14

work's burned up , they will suffer loss , but

1:08:17

they will still be saved . Yet , though it's by

1:08:19

fire , and this is talking about believers

1:08:21

. You know , if you are a believer and you have

1:08:23

that foundation of Christ and there

1:08:25

is just Wood and Chaff and Hay and Stubble

1:08:27

built on that , it's

1:08:30

going to burn up , spiritually speaking . So

1:08:33

to me it's like you've not , you

1:08:35

know , anyone that's not gone through

1:08:37

the processing of God in this life , to where the character

1:08:40

of Christ has come forth . There

1:08:43

is still a processing to go . You know , it doesn't

1:08:45

mean you're not saved , but it does mean

1:08:47

there's still correction , there's still judgment . I mean , the

1:08:49

Scriptures say judgment begins at the house of God , one

1:08:51

of the most underrated aspects of judgment

1:08:54

is how often it applies to the people of God

1:08:56

rather than outsiders . So

1:08:59

the weeping and gnashing of teeth every time you see

1:09:01

that phrase in the Gospels it's applied

1:09:03

to servants , you know . It's applied

1:09:06

to people that should have known , that should have known

1:09:08

their masters will and didn't do it . And

1:09:10

it talks about the sons of the kingdom weeping

1:09:12

and gnashing their teeth when they themselves are in outer

1:09:14

darkness . But they see people come from the east and west

1:09:17

and north and south and sitting with Abraham

1:09:19

and Isaac and Jacob and the kingdom of God , yet they

1:09:21

themselves , sons of the kingdom , are cast out . You

1:09:23

can be a son of the kingdom and yet still be in

1:09:25

outer darkness for a spell . You know and

1:09:28

still have to be processed , still have to be judged

1:09:30

, and this Scripture is is really

1:09:32

always gets skipped over . But it's like , hang on

1:09:34

, we've made the second death all

1:09:36

about unbelievers , but it's only

1:09:38

the overcomers that's not going to be hurt by it . So

1:09:41

, whatever you believe about the Lake

1:09:43

of Fire , be aware there's going to

1:09:45

be Christians in there . You know one way

1:09:47

or another , because this Scripture shows

1:09:49

it's a promise . To not be in the Lake of

1:09:51

Fire is only to the overcomer .

1:09:54

I'm blown away by I think this probably

1:09:57

rides on the heels of you just writing

1:09:59

your book recently , but you've got all of these things

1:10:01

in the chamber ready to go . I'm just

1:10:03

blown away by how quickly you can pull them up in your

1:10:05

head . But I wish I could

1:10:07

do that . But yeah , that's

1:10:09

why I'm here to learn so

1:10:12

and I definitely want to . I think

1:10:14

you sent out your book , but I'm going

1:10:16

to have to ask for that again and I'll tell

1:10:18

you specifically why once the call is over . But

1:10:20

, that being said , I only have about 10

1:10:22

to 15 minutes left because

1:10:25

I need to be up pretty early in the morning , so

1:10:27

I'll just read through this next one . And

1:10:30

you made some really fantastic points when

1:10:32

I listened to this again , as I'm editing the audio

1:10:35

and trimming out all the parts that I thought made me

1:10:37

look dumb , I'm going to

1:10:39

which is probably most of

1:10:41

it , but I'm going to

1:10:43

definitely maybe jot down a

1:10:45

few things and look into it again , because we're

1:10:47

always kind of at the precipice

1:10:49

of another really interesting conversation in these things and

1:10:52

I definitely want to explore more . Okay

1:10:55

, and to the angel of

1:10:57

the church of Porgamos I'm going to roll the

1:10:59

R here . Porgamos , or Porgamos

1:11:01

writes these things

1:11:03

, says he who has the sharp two-edge

1:11:06

sword . I know your works

1:11:08

and where you dwell , where Satan's

1:11:10

throne is , and you hold fast

1:11:12

to my name and did not deny my faith

1:11:14

even the last days in which

1:11:16

Antipas was my faithful martyr

1:11:19

, who was killed among you , where Satan dwells

1:11:21

. But I have a few things against

1:11:23

you , because you have there those

1:11:25

who hold to the doctrine of Balaam , who

1:11:28

taught Balak to put a stumbling

1:11:30

block before the children of Israel , to

1:11:32

eat things sacrificed to idols and

1:11:35

to commit some sexual immorality . Thus

1:11:37

let's try the page here . You

1:11:39

also have those who hold the doctrine of the

1:11:41

Nicolaotans , which I also hate Repent

1:11:45

, or else I will come to you quickly

1:11:47

and will fight against them with the sword of my

1:11:49

mouth . He who has an ear , let

1:11:51

him hear what the Spirit says to the churches , to

1:11:53

him who overcomes , I will give him

1:11:56

some of the hidden manna to eat and I

1:11:58

will give him a white stone and on the stone a new

1:12:00

name written which no one knows except

1:12:02

him who receives it Alright

1:12:06

, pergamos , mixed

1:12:08

marriage in Greek . I

1:12:10

think a distillation of that would be

1:12:12

basically mingling

1:12:15

the world with the church . What are your thoughts

1:12:17

? Yeah , yeah . So

1:12:20

doctrine of Balaam . I thought this one was interesting . It was

1:12:22

one I had to look into again . So

1:12:26

Balaam in the Old Testament wanted

1:12:28

Israel to be out of favor with God . So he

1:12:30

arranged for the Jews to fornicate with

1:12:32

some beautiful women , so

1:12:35

that God would essentially turn against

1:12:37

Israel . And that's precisely what happened

1:12:39

. They were mingling with pagan

1:12:41

women . Is that correct ?

1:12:43

Yeah , I believe I'd have to look it up , sure

1:12:45

.

1:12:48

So I once read that there were certain this is

1:12:50

just a , probably a drop in

1:12:52

the ocean but there were certain Greek temples

1:12:55

that had images

1:12:57

of Jesus next to Hercules

1:12:59

. Obviously , the

1:13:01

type of intermingling in idols

1:13:03

that are brought into the church are , I would say

1:13:05

, far more egregious than that today , where

1:13:08

you have people who are endorsing everything

1:13:11

pornography , false

1:13:15

spirituality , you name

1:13:17

it all kinds of basically

1:13:19

just marrying or trying

1:13:22

to graft evil things into holiness

1:13:24

. And yeah

1:13:27

, christ is against that

1:13:29

.

1:13:32

Yeah , I think there's definitely some amazing

1:13:35

metaphors in here as well . Like , I think , I

1:13:38

think you know I'd always also false image

1:13:40

of who we believe the true God to be . And

1:13:42

you know , eating is often used

1:13:45

of like doctrines and teachings , you know as

1:13:47

well . So , like , if you have

1:13:49

a false image of God that leads

1:13:51

to false teachings and

1:13:53

then you ascribe to those false teachings

1:13:55

and you digest them and you , you know , let

1:13:58

them become a part of you and it's all based

1:14:00

on a false image , even a false image of our

1:14:02

God , you know , then that's

1:14:04

eating , something sacrificed to an idol as well

1:14:06

. Um , and

1:14:08

sexual immorality as well , obviously , is to

1:14:11

me just um , you know

1:14:13

, uh , we really mostly

1:14:16

, I think , uh , what is lots of ways

1:14:18

of having spiritual sexual immorality , but , like the virgins

1:14:20

that we see later in Revelation , I don't believe they're literal

1:14:22

virgins . I think there are people that just haven't , haven't

1:14:25

had their true love of Christ and fidelity

1:14:27

to him , tainted by the world

1:14:29

or by religion , you know , or by anything

1:14:32

that's not of him and that just maintained

1:14:34

a pure faith . It's not , you know , it's

1:14:36

not a literal thing in that sense , and

1:14:38

I think that with sexual immorality , obviously

1:14:40

there's literal and I'm sure that was literally

1:14:42

happening . But I think there's also like a spiritual , sexual

1:14:44

immorality where we allow ourselves to get juiced

1:14:46

away from Christ . You know , um

1:14:48

, the other thing I really like

1:14:51

about this uh , what sounds silly to say I really

1:14:53

like about scripture . But , uh

1:14:55

, you know how , he introduced himself as the one who

1:14:57

has the sharp , two-edged sword and he'll

1:15:00

fight against him with the sword of my mouth . And I

1:15:02

think this is really important because the sharp , two-edged sword

1:15:04

is the word of God . You know , hebrews

1:15:07

talks about the word of God

1:15:09

being sharpened in the two-edged sword . And when you find a

1:15:11

two-edged sword elsewhere in scripture , it

1:15:13

pertains to the word of God and Christ has

1:15:15

that two-edged sword coming out of his mouth

1:15:18

. So , like again , I think , revelation 19

1:15:20

, it talks about people being killed with

1:15:22

the sword that came out of Jesus' mouth . And in Psalm

1:15:25

I think 149 , it talks about the

1:15:27

saints executing

1:15:29

a written judgment on the nations with the two-edged

1:15:31

sword in their hand . And I

1:15:33

think it's really important to understand that , like , the word

1:15:35

of God is powerful and that the word of

1:15:37

God can judge and the world , like

1:15:39

the saints are going to judge the world and we're going to judge it by

1:15:42

the word of God , um and uh . So

1:15:44

you know it's , and it's interesting that

1:15:46

talking about the word on the promises

1:15:48

is like a new name written , you

1:15:50

know , because obviously having something written pertains to

1:15:52

it , to a word as well . So we'll have a , we'll

1:15:55

have a new nature written on on on

1:15:57

a stone , as it were , on a white stone

1:15:59

which , you know , like a symbolizes

1:16:01

purity , obviously , um , but

1:16:03

written by the word . You know , when something's written , it's written

1:16:06

, it's a word and we're going to become

1:16:08

, we're going to become the word of God

1:16:10

ourselves , I think , ultimately , because the

1:16:12

word of God is an expression of God . One

1:16:15

of my favorite ways in which I've heard what people

1:16:18

call the trinity described . I don't actually believe

1:16:20

in , uh , um , literal

1:16:22

trinity . If there's three beings that are like

1:16:24

, well , it's actually , we're actually one , even though there's

1:16:26

three of us , but we're really just one . But really this

1:16:28

, but how ? I ? The best way I've heard it described

1:16:31

, because I think there are three different aspects

1:16:33

of God , but I think it pertains to our soul , spirit

1:16:36

, body . I heard someone say that when

1:16:38

, um , when someone goes to speak

1:16:40

, that the air moves along our you

1:16:42

know , whatever um vocal chords , and

1:16:45

then the word comes out , you know . And

1:16:47

so God , the soul of God , is

1:16:49

the father , but the spirit is

1:16:52

like the wind , the breath , and then the

1:16:54

son is the word , the expression , you

1:16:56

know , and that ties

1:16:58

in really well . You know that son is the body , the spirit

1:17:00

, obviously the spirit . The father is the soul . So

1:17:02

there are three attributes of God , but God is one

1:17:05

and he can still be one because he has , you

1:17:07

know , the person that wants to , to

1:17:09

, to , to express . And then there's the air

1:17:11

, the spirit , moving along the divine

1:17:14

vocal chords , in a manner of speaking , and then there's

1:17:16

the word that expresses the

1:17:18

father and the manifestation of the father

1:17:20

, you know , by the spirit , and that's why

1:17:23

, you know , mary could be overshadowed

1:17:25

by the spirit and it not be the spirit

1:17:27

. That was the father of Jesus , because it's all one

1:17:29

. The father was giving

1:17:31

birth , in a sense , to a word , by the Holy

1:17:34

Spirit moving along his vocal chords , again

1:17:36

in a manner of speaking , and that which was

1:17:38

produced was Jesus . You know , god

1:17:40

creates by , by speaking

1:17:43

. You know , let there be light , let there be a baby

1:17:45

conceived in this womb . You know , the father

1:17:48

, by

1:17:50

the spirit , produces the word in the womb

1:17:52

. You know it's a real

1:17:54

, beautiful harmony . Yeah , that is justice

1:17:57

, but it's . It's the best way I've heard

1:17:59

it described anyway .

1:18:01

Amazing point , yeah , really amazing point , okay

1:18:05

, thyatira . So enter

1:18:07

the angel of the church in Thyatira , right

1:18:10

? These things , says the son of God

1:18:12

, who has eyes like a flame of fire and his

1:18:14

feet like fine brass . I

1:18:16

know your works love , service , faith and

1:18:18

your patience . As for your works

1:18:21

, the last are more than

1:18:23

the first . Nevertheless , I

1:18:25

have a few things against you , because you allow the woman

1:18:27

Jezebel , who calls herself a prophetess

1:18:29

, to teach and seduce my servants

1:18:32

to commit sexual immorality and eat things

1:18:34

, sacrifice to idols , and

1:18:36

I give her time to repent for sexual

1:18:38

. I gave her time to repent for

1:18:40

sexual immorality and she did not repent . Indeed

1:18:44

, I will cast her into a sick bed

1:18:46

and those who commit adultery with

1:18:48

her into the great tribulation , unless

1:18:50

they repent of their deeds . I

1:18:53

will kill her children with death , and

1:18:55

all the churches shall know that I am he

1:18:58

who searches the minds and hearts . I

1:19:00

will give to each one of you according

1:19:02

to your works . Now , to you

1:19:04

, I say , and the rest of Thyatira

1:19:07

, as many as I as do

1:19:09

not have this doctrine , who have

1:19:11

not known the depths of Satan , as they

1:19:13

say , I will put on you no

1:19:15

other burden , but hold fast

1:19:17

what you have till I come , and

1:19:20

he who overcomes and keeps my works

1:19:22

until the end , to him I will give power

1:19:24

over the nations . All

1:19:27

right , he shall rule them with a rod of

1:19:29

iron and they shall be dashed to pieces

1:19:31

like the Potter's vessels , as

1:19:34

I have also

1:19:37

received from my father , and I will

1:19:39

give him the morning star . And

1:19:41

he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit

1:19:43

says to the churches . And forgive

1:19:45

me again if this

1:19:48

is a bit awkward or strange . Very , very

1:19:50

tired , overcoming this sleepiness

1:19:53

to have Michael

1:19:55

on because it's such a pleasure to

1:19:57

be able to talk to you . But

1:19:59

all right , thyatira , so this

1:20:01

is the one that I've heard some people parallel

1:20:03

with the , the Catholic

1:20:06

Church , although we see , you know all of the churches

1:20:08

, kind of you know , I

1:20:12

guess , across every single believer , right , but

1:20:14

the big one that somebody pointed

1:20:16

out that was really interesting was Jezebel

1:20:19

. So Jezebel

1:20:21

in the Old Testament arranged an inquisition

1:20:24

to have Namath put

1:20:26

to death falsely , so he was accused

1:20:28

falsely in

1:20:31

order to acquire his land by

1:20:34

the king . So one

1:20:38

of the institutional churches where we see

1:20:40

some of the highest volume

1:20:42

of false inquisition or

1:20:44

false accusation to acquire

1:20:47

money and land is within

1:20:50

the Catholic Church , historically at least , and

1:20:52

that's not to say we haven't seen that type of thing in other

1:20:54

institutional churches . But you

1:20:56

know , there are quite a few examples there . I thought

1:20:59

that was kind of interesting and

1:21:01

that it's frowned upon , evidently

1:21:03

, to steal . So , yeah

1:21:06

.

1:21:08

I mean , you know , ultimately you

1:21:10

know I might mention this before , I know I have

1:21:12

offline review before , but I really think that

1:21:15

everyone's waiting for a great falling weight into

1:21:17

the age . But I think the greatest falling weight

1:21:19

has already happened . And it happened . I was

1:21:21

already beginning to happen even in the early days . But I think

1:21:23

when the church became the state , turned into

1:21:25

a state religion , when formerly Christians had

1:21:28

been persecuted and it became the state

1:21:30

religion , you know , around Constantine's

1:21:32

time , I think that was the fall in the way . I mean

1:21:34

, we've had times where it was illegal

1:21:36

to translate the Bible , where the regular person

1:21:38

had no access to the Bible , where

1:21:40

, you know , people were persecuted to death for trying

1:21:42

to translate it . We had people burned at the stake

1:21:45

, you know , just an intense

1:21:47

spiritual darkness that

1:21:49

came with all that , you know , and I

1:21:51

think we're still there's some

1:21:54

recovery happening , but there's still , you

1:21:56

know this is just a there's been a tiny

1:21:58

bit of recuperation

1:22:00

from that , but I think the falling weight already happened . I mean

1:22:02

, yeah , there could be another falling weight in the age

1:22:04

because we see things that are happening in , you know

1:22:06

, politically influenced things that are happening

1:22:09

in church that are revealing the true heart

1:22:11

of a lot of and I say the church system . But

1:22:13

you know , a lot of things that are pronounced from the pulpits , that

1:22:15

are very political , that are bowing to the spirit of

1:22:17

the age , to where you're kind of revealing

1:22:19

the true heart behind a lot of these pulpits

1:22:22

, sure , but

1:22:24

you know you can't really fall away more than burning

1:22:26

Christians at the stake . I mean , they burned other people at

1:22:28

stake , but they burned Christians at the stake . You can't . You

1:22:31

can try and match up to your former deeds

1:22:33

but you can't really top that , you know . Yeah

1:22:35

. So , I think , and also the Bible's out

1:22:38

there now . It's always going to be out there , even if it's made illegal

1:22:40

. It's always out there . It's in so many languages

1:22:42

so I don't mean you're ever going to get to the point

1:22:44

where the scriptures are locked up in Latin again

1:22:46

, you know . So , yeah , and

1:22:50

so I can definitely . I can definitely see that . One

1:22:52

thing I'd point out to you and this is a bit of a tangent , but his

1:22:54

feet like fine brass . I heard

1:22:56

someone say once and I think this is quite

1:22:58

feasible that there's a lot

1:23:01

of talk about God's feet and Christ's feet

1:23:03

and scriptures and that a

1:23:05

lot of it people take as prophetic towards believers

1:23:07

at the end of the age . Because if you look at a body

1:23:09

, you know the first part of the body of Christ to

1:23:11

exist was the head , jesus . So , in

1:23:14

a manner of speaking , you could see the church

1:23:16

that's been revealed throughout these

1:23:18

2,000 years as like a body taking shape

1:23:20

from the head down the shoulders and that would

1:23:22

make the feet the last part of the body to

1:23:24

be completed . And there's

1:23:26

a lot of scriptures about the feet , you know , making the

1:23:28

place of your feet glorious and all this , and people

1:23:31

often tighten to like the great , you know

1:23:33

, anointing that lovers expect at the end of the age

1:23:35

, like the latter rain and the

1:23:38

kind of final spiritual battle of the age

1:23:40

. And you know , christ's feet

1:23:42

are like fine brass , and brass and scriptures

1:23:44

are symbolic of judgment , bronze and

1:23:47

brass . And when it actually introduces

1:23:49

him in Revelation 1 , it says , I

1:23:51

think it says his feet are like bronze , it's been

1:23:53

refined in a fire , you know

1:23:55

. So that could be tied into like

1:23:57

the end times body is judged by God

1:24:00

to like refine it . You know , because

1:24:02

when we first meet him it's like feet

1:24:04

refined in a fire . And then we meet him here it says

1:24:06

his feet are like fine brass and it's , if

1:24:09

you take that and again there's some conjecture

1:24:11

there but if you take it as his feet are

1:24:13

symbolic of something

1:24:19

happening , that we might be like fine brass

1:24:21

, you know . But there is a judgment in the fire coming and

1:24:23

a , you know , a spiritual battle coming , and

1:24:26

that's just . I'm just throwing it out there . It's certainly

1:24:28

nothing to be dogmatic about , but just something as a seed

1:24:30

for anyone to ruminate on

1:24:32

, because there are a lot , there is actually a lot of talk

1:24:34

about God's feet in Scripture , more than you

1:24:36

think . I don't think I've talked about my own feet more

1:24:38

than once or twice in my entire life , but the

1:24:41

Scriptures talk about God's feet a lot , so it's

1:24:43

something that's worth considering and

1:24:46

reading up on , I think .

1:24:48

Yeah , really really interesting points yeah . I don't

1:24:50

think I've ever heard you mention your feet before . I've

1:24:53

probably mentioned mine a few times , but it's because I had athletes

1:24:56

foot for a little while . That's not really an avenue worth

1:24:58

going down , so , all

1:25:00

right , yeah , really excellent points , though , kidding

1:25:03

aside . Okay , so I'm going to do these

1:25:05

last . How do you wrap up the last three

1:25:07

quickly ? I have a couple of notes on all these and

1:25:10

then , yeah , I'll probably want to be done within the next few minutes

1:25:12

, but enter the angel

1:25:14

of the church in Sardis . Right , these

1:25:17

things , says he who has the seven spirits

1:25:19

of God and the seven stars . I

1:25:21

know your works , that you

1:25:23

have a name and that you are alive , but you are

1:25:25

dead . Be watchful and strengthen

1:25:28

the things which remain , that are ready

1:25:30

to die , for

1:25:32

I have not found your works perfect before God

1:25:35

. Remember , therefore , how you

1:25:37

have received and heard , hold fast

1:25:39

and repent . Therefore , if

1:25:41

you will not watch , I will come upon

1:25:43

you as a thief and you will not know

1:25:46

what hour I will come upon you . You

1:25:48

have a few names , even in Sardis

1:25:50

, who have not defiled their garments

1:25:53

, and they shall walk with me in white

1:25:55

, for they are worthy . He who overcomes

1:25:57

shall be clothed in white garments and

1:25:59

I will not blot out his name from the

1:26:01

Book of Life , but I will confess his

1:26:04

name before my father and before his angels

1:26:06

. He who has an ear , let him hear

1:26:08

what the Spirit says to the churches . All

1:26:11

right , sardis , pretty

1:26:14

scathing review .

1:26:17

Yeah , to be

1:26:19

dead is worth . So

1:26:21

where in your research , where has

1:26:23

this been given as like falling in historically

1:26:26

?

1:26:26

Well , that's

1:26:28

the thing , If this

1:26:32

is all conjectural . But if Thyatira

1:26:35

is the Catholic Church , then

1:26:37

Sardis would be the Protestant Reformation . What

1:26:40

are your thoughts on that ?

1:26:43

Yeah , I mean , I couldn't imagine that , because

1:26:45

ultimately , you know , luther came

1:26:47

out of Catholicism and then ultimately

1:26:50

he was just trying

1:26:52

to reform it , but he just created another . You

1:26:54

know , lutherism just became another dead monument

1:26:57

really . Yeah . It's

1:26:59

not like it moved on with the Spirit . I

1:27:01

feel like the Spirit's kind of restored truths , and

1:27:03

then people just turn it into the nomination

1:27:05

and then it just classifies , you know , yeah

1:27:08

, so I think that's definitely

1:27:10

quite possible .

1:27:11

I just had one other note . I thought it was kind of interesting and

1:27:13

just a pleb you know , sort of regurgitating

1:27:16

a thought here , but I noted that

1:27:18

Christ said if you're not watching , I will

1:27:20

come upon you as a thief . To

1:27:22

me that would mean if you are watching , then

1:27:25

he wouldn't come upon you as a thief , and

1:27:27

the indication there . And I think a

1:27:29

lot of people paint with broad strokes and

1:27:31

you probably knew this

1:27:33

well before I did , but a lot

1:27:35

of again . We've talked about this in

1:27:38

times past about how Christ's

1:27:40

return and revelation can mean

1:27:43

so many different things , but people always

1:27:45

put it just under the moniker second coming of Christ

1:27:48

, right , when there are many

1:27:51

types of Christ's presence

1:27:53

joining us , and the Scripture is replete

1:27:55

with examples of , you know

1:27:58

, the Spirit of God joining people or

1:28:00

Christ's presence being with somebody

1:28:02

and that person accomplishing a thing

1:28:04

because of that right . So this to

1:28:06

me would indicate , you

1:28:09

know , people often put this just under the moniker oh , a second

1:28:11

coming of Christ is going to come upon you like a thief

1:28:13

. This is just some type of , in my

1:28:15

opinion , a general appearance

1:28:18

of Christ in the person's life coming

1:28:20

upon you as a thief , because he's specifically

1:28:22

speaking to this church

1:28:25

, right . Yeah . So

1:28:27

I mean , clearly , that's not

1:28:29

some type of grand appearance , that's just , you

1:28:31

know , the presence of Christ , which of course

1:28:33

is grand anyway , but you know it's , I

1:28:36

don't know , just spitballing here .

1:28:37

Yeah , I mean the word

1:28:39

second coming . The phrase second coming is not in Scripture

1:28:42

anywhere . I think the coming of Christ

1:28:44

is one of the most understood aspects . There's a lot of

1:28:46

Greek underlying it , so I think there's six or seven words

1:28:48

that are all translated as coming at different

1:28:50

times and they mean different things . There's like

1:28:53

point A to . Point B is Archimae , and

1:28:56

I'm using just an English accent for Greek . You have a better

1:28:59

accent for Greek , but just got to roll the R

1:29:01

. Exactly Ancient Greek . Basically , no one

1:29:03

knows exactly how ancient Greek was pronounced

1:29:05

, so there's people that pronounce it as

1:29:07

modern Greek , or there's people like , but as

1:29:09

a school of thought , where it's like we don't know , so we're just going to pronounce

1:29:11

it in a regular accent .

1:29:13

We have an idea though .

1:29:14

I did a regular accent because I have terrible diction

1:29:16

so I'm not going to try and act . All you

1:29:18

know exotic with it .

1:29:20

But there is an idea though . So

1:29:22

if you and this is a complete other

1:29:24

tangent but if you , if you're

1:29:26

willing to roll with the punch of apostolic

1:29:29

succession that the Orthodox Church claims

1:29:31

, then you

1:29:33

might be able to accept their pronunciation

1:29:35

of Kene Greek , or what

1:29:38

some people know as Koinea Greek .

1:29:40

So what I do have

1:29:42

a the other reason I don't like to accept it , and this

1:29:44

is just kind of sure yeah . Yeah , and

1:29:46

this is just purely aesthetic . A

1:29:49

lot of vowels are all pronounced

1:29:51

E , e and diphthongs are all pronounced

1:29:53

E in modern . Greek Sure , sure . Yeah , like

1:29:55

E , I combined and and if

1:29:57

you use I think it's the Erasmian pronunciation

1:30:00

, then you actually get like they'll

1:30:02

have variety in how they're pronounced . So I actually

1:30:04

like that as well . Like I've tried to learn modern Greek and

1:30:06

got like at least to like advanced

1:30:08

basic with it or early intermediate . Oh wow

1:30:11

, but I've noticed all the vowels are like

1:30:13

you know , so

1:30:15

many of them are just pronounced E , even like O , I

1:30:17

is E and E I is E . Okay . So

1:30:20

there's not as much variety

1:30:22

. So part of thinking about and I think it's

1:30:24

the Erasmian , where you just kind of pronounce it

1:30:26

as if you're speaking English book , but like

1:30:28

they do differentiate the pronunciations

1:30:31

, that I kind of like that too Sure . So like , but

1:30:33

yeah , I mean it's no big deal , but I'm

1:30:36

trying to think what we were talking

1:30:38

about . Now I

1:30:41

can't remember . Oh yeah , the coming of Christ

1:30:44

. There's all these different words , yeah yeah , like

1:30:46

one of the means coming point A to B

1:30:48

. One of the means presence , parousia

1:30:51

, presence , or you know especially that presence

1:30:53

. Alongside there's epiphania

1:30:56

, where we get like epiphany

1:30:58

from there's

1:31:01

, which is kind of like you know

1:31:03

it's

1:31:05

a compound word but it's like an appearance

1:31:07

there's

1:31:10

. There's apocalypsis . Really

1:31:12

I don't know what apocalypsis is , it would translate

1:31:14

coming , but that's the revelation of Christ

1:31:16

. But there's there's , there's , there's other ones

1:31:18

too , and you know

1:31:20

, people have been trained to just see every

1:31:23

coming of Christ in scripture as second coming

1:31:25

. But there is a great coming . That's

1:31:27

going to happen and it's prophesied

1:31:29

, and the one that you're labeling in your mind second coming

1:31:31

. That is going to happen , but it's not ever

1:31:33

called a second coming in scripture . And the reason it's important

1:31:36

to make a differentiation is if you understand

1:31:38

that it's , yes , it's a great coming and it's something we're

1:31:40

looking for , but it's not if you think it's the second

1:31:42

coming and you think Christ has been gone all this time

1:31:44

. He's not been gone . He came back as the Holy

1:31:47

Spirit . He's been here the whole time . You know , and

1:31:49

if you think he's gone , then you're always looking

1:31:51

for an exterior . God , oh man , jesus is in

1:31:54

heaven . I just can't wait for him to come back . You

1:31:56

know like I just wish he was here right now . And it's like

1:31:58

he is here , he lives in me and

1:32:00

he's working and he appears to you and he comes

1:32:02

to you . And he comes to you in different

1:32:05

forms . He comes to you in judgment , he comes to

1:32:07

you in correction , he comes to you in blessing , he comes

1:32:09

like the rain , he comes like the clouds , he comes

1:32:11

like the wind . He is always working and active

1:32:13

. And when you understand that , then you stop taking

1:32:15

every single coming of Christ as the second coming

1:32:18

. Yeah , and that's that word . Second has done

1:32:20

a lot of damage to people's perception of Christ's

1:32:22

work in these 2000 years .

1:32:24

I agree , yeah , I agree completely . Really good points

1:32:26

as well . Okay

1:32:31

, let's

1:32:34

see . Okay , next one , of course

1:32:36

. And to the angel of the church

1:32:38

in Philadelphia , right , these

1:32:40

things says he who is holy , he who is

1:32:42

true , he who has the key of David , and he who

1:32:44

opens , he who opens and no one

1:32:47

shuts and shuts and no one's , no

1:32:49

one opens . I know your works . See

1:32:51

, I have set before you an open door and

1:32:53

no one can shut it . For you have a little strength

1:32:56

and have kept my word and have

1:32:58

not denied my name . Indeed

1:33:00

, I will make those in the synagogue of Satan

1:33:02

who say they are Jews and are not , but

1:33:05

lie . Indeed , I will

1:33:07

make them come and worship before your feet

1:33:09

and to know that I have

1:33:11

loved you because you have kept my

1:33:13

command to persevere . I

1:33:15

also will keep you from the hour of trial

1:33:18

which is to come upon the whole world

1:33:20

to test those who dwell on the earth

1:33:22

. Behold , I am coming quickly

1:33:24

. Hold fast what you have

1:33:26

and no one may take your crown

1:33:29

. He who overcomes I will

1:33:31

make him a pillar in the temple of my God and

1:33:34

he shall go out , no more . I will

1:33:36

write on , I write on him the name

1:33:38

of my God and the name of my

1:33:40

, of the city of my God , the new Jerusalem

1:33:42

, which comes down out of heaven from my God

1:33:44

, and I will write on him my new

1:33:46

name . He who has an ear , let him hear

1:33:48

what the Spirit says to the churches Philadelphia

1:33:52

. Okay , brotherly love .

1:33:54

So what is this ? What is this with the

1:33:56

historical , historical thing ? Again ?

1:34:00

I don't know . This one's been labeled the missionary

1:34:02

church , so do with this

1:34:04

what you will , but perhaps you could

1:34:06

even conflate it with the

1:34:09

parts of the evangelical

1:34:11

church , although I know that that's a dangerous ground

1:34:13

because there's a lot of shaky evangelical

1:34:16

practices out there . But the

1:34:18

people who I

1:34:21

don't know , maybe I'll throw some names out there , maybe

1:34:23

the , the John Wimbers of

1:34:25

the world , or the

1:34:27

, who are some , some other

1:34:29

big names . I think

1:34:31

that the Jesus movement

1:34:34

of the 60s is kind

1:34:36

of interesting , even though it's laced

1:34:39

with a bit of heresy and a little bit of nonsense

1:34:42

. I think that

1:34:44

people acting in the gifts of the Spirit and

1:34:47

inviting everyone in and avoiding

1:34:49

institutional practice

1:34:52

, but that that in and of

1:34:54

itself became an institution at a certain point

1:34:56

. So yeah , I don't know , I

1:34:59

guess it's in God's hands to really

1:35:01

determine what umbrella that is over

1:35:04

, but what that umbrella is over , excuse

1:35:06

me , yeah , yeah that's

1:35:09

an interesting one .

1:35:10

Philadelphia definitely , and

1:35:13

it's never been a worse name city

1:35:15

than Philadelphia and Pennsylvania . Sorry

1:35:18

, that's me . Yeah . I actually

1:35:20

have a really good friend in Philadelphia

1:35:22

. It's just the cliche that it's a bit rough and tumble

1:35:24

and

1:35:26

not necessarily running over

1:35:29

and probably love all the time .

1:35:31

Man . I have seen some videos coming out of Philadelphia

1:35:34

. That's another conversation . Okay

1:35:37

, last one . And to the angel

1:35:39

of the church of Laodicea , right these

1:35:41

things , says the Amen , the faithful and

1:35:44

true witness , the beginning of the creation

1:35:46

of God . I know your works , that

1:35:48

you are neither cold nor hot . I

1:35:50

wish you could be cold or hot . So

1:35:52

then , because you are lukewarm and

1:35:54

neither cold nor hot , I will vomit

1:35:56

you out of my mouth , because

1:35:59

you say I am rich

1:36:01

, have become wealthy and

1:36:04

have need of nothing , and do not know that you

1:36:06

are wretched , miserable , poor , blind and

1:36:09

naked . I counsel you to

1:36:11

buy me , to buy for me gold refined

1:36:13

in the fire that you may be rich with

1:36:16

white garments , that you may be clothed

1:36:18

, that the shame of your nakedness may

1:36:20

not be revealed , and anoint your

1:36:22

eyes with eye salve that you may see as

1:36:25

many as I love . I rebuke and chasten

1:36:27

. Therefore , be zealous and repent . Behold

1:36:30

, I stand at the door and knock . If anyone hears

1:36:32

my voice and opens the door , I

1:36:35

will come to him and dine with him and he

1:36:37

with me . To him who overcomes

1:36:39

, I will grant to sit with me on

1:36:41

my throne , as also , as

1:36:43

I also overcame and sat down with my father

1:36:45

on his throne . He who has an ear

1:36:47

, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches

1:36:50

. Alright

1:36:52

, interesting stuff . I

1:36:57

just wrote down Osteen

1:36:59

and Creflo Dollar and I also

1:37:02

had . Yeah , laodicea means people

1:37:04

rule , so it's a church ruled by the

1:37:06

people . This

1:37:09

is the church that's run by committee , that

1:37:12

is , they have their

1:37:15

crowd pleasers , dollar

1:37:18

seekers , money seekers or whatever

1:37:20

you want to say . And I think it's

1:37:22

really interesting that that

1:37:25

last verse more

1:37:27

, not last verse , but the third

1:37:30

before the last , behold

1:37:32

, I stand at the door and knock . If anyone hears my voice

1:37:34

, and if anyone hears my voice

1:37:36

and opens the door , I will come in and dine with him and he with

1:37:38

me . That's often used as a

1:37:41

sort of almost aphorism that

1:37:43

you see . I remember buying a poster

1:37:45

from St Paul's Cathedral in London

1:37:47

with a famous

1:37:49

painting of Christ knocking on a door and it's

1:37:51

this kind of warm and fuzzy image . But

1:37:54

in my opinion and I don't mean to be a reverent

1:37:56

toward Christ , I don't know where he is or what he's