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Sept. 16, 2024 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
53:13
Sermon #050 - Revelation Ch 1-3 - God's warnings to the SYNAGOGUES OF SATAN...
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Welcome to today's sermon.
I'm Mike Adams with Abundance.Church, and feel free to go there to that website, Abundance.Church, instead of .com, Abundance.Church, and you can join the email list there and be alerted to new things that we are posting and reference materials and so on.
Now, today I've decided we must cover the book of Revelation.
All of it.
Not in one sermon.
That would not be possible.
I think there's a lot to cover, and this may carry us interspersed with talks about nutrition and food and superfoods and so on, but this may carry us through the remainder of the 50 sermons that I have promised to bring you to round out the first 100 sermons.
And we're on about 50 right now.
Now, as I'm recording this, I'm actually recording this on the day that there was a second assassination attempt on President Trump.
And as you know, Trump only survived the first assassination attempt because of God's intervention.
It's very clear that God saved Trump because he needs to use Trump in order to help save Well, save human civilization, I believe, part of that involves saving the church, which is covered in the book of Revelation.
And just for the record, I'm not in any way claiming that God endorses Trump and everything that Trump has ever done.
As you know, if you read scripture, you know that God uses people.
Sometimes good people, sometimes bad people, sometimes evil people.
Sometimes he uses like Nebuchadnezzar, you know, to achieve a strategic or a conquering to teach the ancient Israelites a lesson about what happens if you turn from wickedness.
So God uses people of all varieties in order to carry out his purpose, his vision for humanity.
So whether you think Trump is good, bad, or indifferent, that's irrelevant, actually.
God is using Trump to do something that he wants done.
And I believe that God wants the church to be saved and for more people to turn to him, God, as he repeatedly demanded in the Old Testament.
And that we're on the verge of a resurgence in people turning to faith and turning to God following a massive catastrophe.
And we may be entering the tribulation, although I don't want to say I know for certain, but that's part of the discussion here in the book of Revelation.
And since people tend to argue a lot, Christian people argue a lot over the timing of the tribulation, you're not going to hear me insist on any particular timing. - Mm-hmm.
But I'll share with you my observations and I'll welcome your own points of view.
And many of you listening, you are far more accomplished Bible scholars than I. So I'll just share with you my impressions.
And obviously, we're all free to form our own views of where we think things are.
But what has become clear to me?
I believe that the book of Revelation speaks across time, and I believe that it speaks to events that are happening now, in addition to speaking to other events.
And yes, maybe it was speaking about events in 70 A.D.
as well, and, you know, the attacks on Christians by Nero and so on.
Yeah, it could be speaking to both times, but I believe that the tribulation can only come after the crucifixion of Christ.
Therefore, that post-crucifixion era obviously includes today.
The Tribulation may be happening now, we may be entering it, or it may be right around the corner, or perhaps we are experiencing echoes of the Tribulation yet to come.
Hopefully more of those answers will become clear as we read through the Book of Revelation.
Now, unlike other books that I'm covering here in these sermons, I felt it's important for us to literally read the entire book of Revelation.
Word for word, I'm going to read the New King James Version.
And I think we need to go through it word for word with my commentary.
So this is going to take, obviously, quite a while to do all of this, but I think it's critical because this isn't just history.
I believe this is also the present and the future unfolding in real time.
And I believe that this book gives us very powerful clues about what we need to be doing in the present.
In order to navigate the persecution of the church, the persecution of people who speak freely, we are living under a global censorship regime that is truly demonic.
We are living under a global attack.
I mean we are living in times with weapons and psychological operations that have never been witnessed in human history.
to achieve global depopulation.
I mean, we are living in times with weapons and psychological operations that have never been witnessed in human history.
This is unprecedented.
These simultaneous assaults on humanity are absolutely unprecedented.
And we're even seeing demonic infestation taking over people at a level that has just never been witnessed before in human history.
So I know it's easy for people to say, well, you know, World War II was really bad, and you might have thought that was the end of days if you were getting bombed in London.
You know, the Germans launching V2 rockets and they were coming out of the sky.
You probably thought that was the tribulation.
And I understand that thinking.
War is hell.
I understand.
And yet there has never been the kind of war or the degree of war that we are experiencing right now.
And here we sit on the verge of nuclear war.
Which has never occurred since the end of World War II with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And even that, those were atomic bombs, which are incredibly tiny compared to today's thermonuclear bombs.
For reference, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, I believe they were about 15 kilotons each.
And today, even the little suitcase nukes, I believe, are up to 100 kilotons, and then the actual warheads in the ballistic missiles that are possessed by Russia and the United States and China and other countries, it's not uncommon for those to be one megaton, and Russia is rumored to have 100 megaton warheads in its underwater Poseidon
Nuclear drones that can lodge themselves into the sea wall or the continental shelf wall, and they could be detonated to unleash a giant radioactive tsunami, for example, to inundate the east coast of the United States with radioactive water.
A hundred megaton warhead is thousands of times more powerful than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
So we are living in a time now that has never been seen before.
And I do believe there are elements in the book of Revelation that are really important for us to understand.
And by the way, it's also, when we get to the four horsemen, remember that one of the horsemen is named Cloros.
I pointed this out.
I'm the person in alternative media that pointed out that chloros refers to chlorophyll.
Usually that horse is called the color gray, but it's actually not gray.
In the original writings, it was chloros, which is like chlorophyll or green.
And so the attack on chlorophyll is the attack on dimming the sun with stratospheric aerosol injection in order to block the sun and block photosynthesis and cause a global food supply collapse leading to global famine.
And this is being engineered right now by our governments and the globalists that are trying to depopulate the planet.
So when we get to the Four Horsemen, I'll give you more details on that interpretation.
Just understand that The color is not gray, it's actually chlorose.
We'll get to that.
All right, so we begin.
Revelation chapter 1, verse 1.
As usual, here's an introduction.
This is very typical of John the Apostle, if indeed he's the author here, but I think this kind of introduction is, you know, it's kind of customary for his letters.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants, things which must shortly take place, and he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near.
Verse four.
This is the greeting to the seven churches.
John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of earth.
To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, So again, this is still all part of the intro.
I assume I don't have to, you know, interpret any of that so far.
forever and ever.
Amen.
So again, this is still all part of the intro.
I assume I don't have to interpret any of that so far.
That's all very straightforward.
Verse 7, behold, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him.
Even so, amen.
Verse 8, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord.
Who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And by the way, that verse there, who is, who was, and who is to come, that's the past, the present, and the future.
You notice how often I've said that God exists across all time, simultaneously, that in the mind of God, the Creator.
Time is just another dimension that he can traverse as easily as you or I can walk forward or backwards.
So, all time exists in the mind of God, and thus, he can see the future, he can warn us about the future.
But remember, there are multiple parallel futures, because we have free will.
And every time we make a decision, we create a new branch in all the possible futures.
Now, the futures that God can see, they all have common trends.
In some futures, the earth is destroyed by atomic weapons.
In other futures, the earth is saved.
You know, in some futures, the Christian church is decimated, and yet in certain futures, the church is revived and becomes very strong and helps to restore human dignity and human civility.
And you know what the difference is between those possible futures?
It's you and me and the choices that we make.
We are the ones who determine which future branches get materialized.
Now, if you think about it, this gets really, really esoteric.
This gets deep.
Because God created the universe, but do you realize that every time you make a choice in free will, that you create a whole new branch of the universe?
Did you know that?
And that's because you are part of God.
You are a creator yourself.
And a lot of people don't realize this.
They think they're powerless.
But actually, with your choices, you are creating new alternate universes, new branches.
You're literally creating them.
They are created from your mind to become real universes that you then inhabit.
And that means that you are a creator just as God is a creator.
God created all that is, but you can create many universes inside that.
Although you and I don't have control over the flow of time.
We can't move to the past and the future.
We are in a predetermined, forward, linear flow of time.
So we can't undo the things that we have done, which is why it's important to make choices with wisdom and maturity and with faith.
But I'm not going to get into all the deep philosophy of that right now.
Let's continue.
Verse 9.
I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
I was in the spirit on the Lord's day.
In other words, he was connected with God's Spirit.
And I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.
And what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches, which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Theatira.
To Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.
I think that's how we pronounce all those churches.
But clearly, God spoke to him and said, Get ready!
You need to record what I'm about to say.
Verse 12, Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands.
And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one, like the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.
So the lampstands, I believe, signify churches.
So in the previous paragraph, he was talking about the seven churches.
And so these seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Verse 14, his head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire.
His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.
He had in his right hand seven stars.
Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
Are you getting the impression this is a powerful divine person here?
Verse 17, And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead, but he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, Do not be afraid.
I am the first and the last.
I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.
Amen.
And I have the keys of Hades and death.
Write the things which you have seen and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.
The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands.
The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
So by the way, when he says, I have the keys of Hades and death, this is very interesting to me because if he has the keys, it could also mean that he is the jailer of Satan, that he has the ability to lock up Satan, which is that he has the ability to lock up Satan, which is exactly what Christ does in the second When he returns and God's booming voice destroys all evil, they lock Satan up.
So we'll get to that.
Interesting stuff.
So far then, chapter one.
John is told, start recording this very important stuff, let's say, and that I am God and I'm going to lay this out for you.
So start writing.
Okay.
Chapter two.
To the angel of the church of Ephesus, write, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, In other words, John is writing this to the church of Ephesus where, of course, people had turned wicked again and again and turned against God.
And this letter is going to basically chide them again from Jesus Christ himself.
Verse two, quote, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.
And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.
And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become weary.
So in this case, you know, he's complimenting those of faith in Ephesus.
Or sometimes I like to say Ephesus, because I think that's a more accurate or Latin pronunciation.
Anyway, verse four.
Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love, that is Christ himself.
Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works.
In other words, practice the fundamentals of being a Christian.
You know, don't forget to pray.
Don't forget to give blessings.
Or to give thanks and grace to God for all the blessings that you have.
Or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.
See?
Like, if you want your church to exist, do the core things that the church is supposed to do.
That's what he's saying.
Verse six.
But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Now, the Nicolaitans, by the way, as you might know from the name, they were sellers of nicotine.
No, I'm kidding.
The Nicolaitans were a group that led the ancient Israelites astray and basically shoved them in the direction of wickedness and demonic types of things.
Okay, so that's what we're talking about.
Verse 7, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Wow.
That's a pretty big promise right there.
So listen to God's message to the church.
If you overcome sin and overcome wickedness and overcome Satanism, then you will one day join God in paradise and you will eat from the tree of life, which is very interesting.
You will eat from the tree of life.
There are a lot of ways to interpret that.
One way is to think of the tree of life as the common connecting spirit of God, which through its branches and roots projects itself into us.
From the moment of conception, there's a little bit of God's spirit that is brought to us.
And then we live our lives thinking that we are an isolated person.
Separate from everybody else, but we're really just different branches from our Creator.
That's why it has the shape of a tree of life.
All the branches come back to the same trunk, the same root, which is God himself.
And when they say to him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, I think means to rejoin the tree of life with God and then to experience the blessings of godliness, of God's energy, God's creative energy of God's energy, God's creative energy flowing through you in a spiritual sense.
All right, now he is going to write to the church in Smyrna.
Verse 8, In other words, here's a message from Christ, well, from God via Christ.
I know your works, tribulation and poverty, but you are rich, and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.
Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days.
Be faithful until death.
And I will give you the crown of life.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.
So this is a message to a church whose some people are of good faith and they're being persecuted and they're going to be thrown in prison and they're going to be killed.
And if they maintain their faith through that death, then they will join God at his side.
So now, writing to the church of Pergamos, verse 12, and to the angel of the church in Pergamos, write, These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword.
I know your works and where you dwell, and Satan's throne is.
And you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith, even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
Thus, you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, Which thing I hate, repent or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
So this is a threat to give up wickedness and evil and demonism.
Otherwise, God will have your church and your city conquered by the sword.
So, verse 17, this is the common conclusion of these messages.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat.
No, not more manna again!
Bringing back the manna, because it was so popular in Numbers.
Let's bring it on back.
Thousand years later, whatever that is, the return of manna, part three.
Okay.
And I will give him a white stone and on the stone, a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.
All right.
The next letter is to the corrupt church.
And I, I, I looked up the pronunciation that everybody uses on this.
So apparently it's Thyatira.
So we'll just go with that.
It's hard to argue with people about pronunciations.
It's funny because I live in Texas, but I also speak Spanish.
I mean, enough Spanish.
And there are many, many cities and towns in Texas that have names in Espanol.
And there's one prominent college town in kind of South Central Texas that is clearly spelled San Marcos.
And I moved to Texas from South America.
And when I did that, I was, of course, pronouncing the cities and the names in Espanol pronunciation.
So I said, you know, San Marcos.
And the locals would correct me and they'd say, it's San Marcos, Marcos.
And I'm like, but it's spelled Marcos, C-O-S.
Like, ah, well, we just pronounce it Marcos.
Nobody says Marcos, it's Marcos.
So, um, so I eventually gave in and I pronounced it San Marcus, but it's still wrong.
It's just like, I mean, I don't mean to get distracted, but it's just like when I hear, when I hear, uh, an Americanized lazy pronunciation of Espanol in restaurants, it drives me nuts.
And somebody orders like, I'll have a burrito polo.
And I'm like, Oh, Oh, that hurts.
Could, could you say pojo?
That's el pollo.
It's chicken, man.
Chicken, pollo, just... But I hold my mouth, you know.
Just sharing a little something with you about me.
Because I've written 10,000 articles in my life and several books, I'm always this editor.
And I'm always correcting people's misspellings.
And sometimes when I'm at a restaurant and I'll find a typo in their menu because it just leaps out at me, I can't help it, and I'll mention it, you know, to the waiter or the waitress.
Hey, did you know there's a typo on page four?
And they're like, yeah, we don't care.
Like, you're the only one who ever even reads.
So anyway, that's my experience of going through the world, being able to see other people's mistakes and just try to point them out politely and then move on.
Not that I don't make my own mistakes, and when people point them out to me, I do try to correct them.
So that's how I learned Spanish, by making a million mistakes and having a lot of people correct me.
But anyway, so I do struggle with some of the pronunciations of the people and the churches and the cities in the Bible, because I don't speak Hebrew.
A lot of the pronunciations are heavily Americanized.
Instead of Latin, or Greek, or Aramaic, as they probably should be.
So, this is an area that I struggle with.
Anyway, moving on.
We shall call it Theatira.
Okay.
And to the angel of the church in Theatira write... Again, this is another letter.
These things says the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass.
In other words, another introduction, these are the words of God.
I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience.
And as for your works, the last are more than the first.
Nevertheless, I have a few things against you.
Because you allow that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.
Indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed.
That's quite a threat, right?
And those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
Now, just to give you an idea of how angry the Lord was with Jezebel, who apparently was running like a church whorehouse.
Basically, you know, like turning the church into a, well, a whorehouse.
And she was the whore.
She was like the whore prophetess.
Like her most accurate prediction was that she was going to sleep with every man in the church.
And what do you know?
She was a hundred percent correct.
And Jesus and the Lord were not happy with her.
So verse 23, I will kill her children with death.
Not leaving much to the imagination.
I will kill her children with death and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts.
And I will give to each one of you according to your works.
Wow.
Basically, you will reap what you sow.
You will know them by their fruits.
And by the way, if Jezebel were transported into our modern times, she would be, she'd have like the number one pop music.
Songs on the charts, she'd be the most famous.
She would be performing at the Super Bowl.
She would be twerking on stage.
She would have her breasts exposed accidentally on purpose with a wardrobe malfunction.
You know, that's the kind of person Jezebel was.
And sadly, her kind, of course, persist throughout all time.
Verse 24, Now to you I say, and to the rest in Theatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden, but hold fast what you have till I come.
And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations.
He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels.
As I also have received from my Father, and I will give him the morning star." Wow!
So he's saying, hey, if you can resist the siren song, the seduction of Jezebel, and you can hold fast to the teachings of the church with Christ, and wait until I return, he is promising, then you're going to inherit the world.
You will be the kings of the future.
You will rule over the world as kings, in essence.
And just as Christ himself has received power from God, Christ will delegate some of that power to you who maintain faith.
In verse 29, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
So, are you getting the pattern here?
We have a few more churches' letters to go through.
And these are really interesting because this collection shows how every one of these churches had, in one way or another, turned against the teachings of Christ and how Christ was, in essence, warning them and threatening them in many ways.
Like, I will kill your children.
And this is not necessarily very Christ-like, right?
I mean, you think about that kind of threat as being, you know, old school, wrath of God, Old Testament type of talk.
Not New Testament, Christ talk.
But, you know, then again, this is what John heard, and maybe actually he's hearing this more straight from God.
And not through the Son of God?
I mean, I don't know.
It's not entirely clear to me.
Maybe it will become more clear.
But this is the word from God as heard by John and then recorded by him.
So, hard to say, but let's continue and see if there are more clues.
Now we go to Revelation chapter 3.
And to the angel of the church of Sardis write, these things says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead.
What?
Yeah.
You can have a heartbeat, but still be dead to God.
In other words, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.
Remember, therefore, how you have received and heard.
Hold fast and repent.
Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.
In other words, you better shape up or I'm coming for you.
Right?
That's an honest translation.
Verse four, you have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments.
Yeah, there's a couple dudes who still are actually good people.
And they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy.
He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.
In other words, I'm going to give these good people credit before God.
See?
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
All right.
And then a letter to the faithful church, Philadelphia.
If only God could see the city of Philadelphia today, oh, it would be very different.
But verse 7, And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, These things says he who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens.
You know, in other words, God, the all-powerful God.
Verse 8, I know your works, like I've been watching you, got my eye on you like Santa Claus.
See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it, for you have a little strength, have kept my word, and have not denied my name.
Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie.
Indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet and to know that I have loved you, because you have kept my command to persevere and also will keep you from the hour of trial, which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.
Oh, this is getting good.
Hour of trial, which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell upon the earth.
As you're seeing in all these letters, those who persevere, even who share in the persecution, the same kind of persecution that Christ was subjected to, will earn their place beside the Lord.
And remember that Paul himself, I believe, wasn't this in, this was in first Timothy, Paul was saying how his time in jail, he interpreted that as a blessing of sharing in the persecution that Christ endured.
And remember how he was writing that if he were executed, that that would make him happy because he could join God more quickly, but that if he were not executed, then It would be more work for him to remain alive on earth and have to go to work trying to endure the persecution and bring more people to Christ.
But that he felt guilty and even thinking that it was a selfish idea to almost want to be executed to join God more quickly, because it's a harder path to actually stay alive and do the work.
Remember that?
Well, this letter reminds me of that.
Verse 11, Behold, I am coming quickly.
Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.
He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more.
I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
And then, to the lukewarm church of the Laodiceans.
I think I've got that pronounced correctly.
And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, write, these things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.
I could wish you were cold or hot.
So then, because you are lukewarm, And neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.
This is a fun phrase.
He's saying, you know, if you were really good, it would be easy to write this letter.
We would just praise you for enduring.
If you were really evil, that would also be easy.
We'd just threaten to kill your children.
But since you're lukewarm, It's nauseating.
I don't know how to deal with you.
Verse 17.
Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
That's quite a combination.
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich.
What's gold refined in the fire?
Well, obviously, the spiritual riches of enduring persecution and sticking to the teachings of Christ.
That's gold refined in the fire.
He's not talking about precious metals.
You know, stacking my gold and counting my ounces.
No, no, no.
Currency with God is what counts here.
And white garments that you may be clothed that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.
And anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
Therefore, be zealous and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
It's like, here I am.
I hope you're ready.
I'm going to come and you're going to be judged.
Essentially, you're going to be judged because the Lord is always watching.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me.
To Him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
All right.
Those are the first three chapters of the book of Revelation.
Things are about to get real interesting from here forward, but what I want to review here is how These letters are setting up the seven churches with an important message about surviving the tribulation.
That the things they've endured so far, a persecution under Rome, a persecution under the Roman leaders or the Roman soldiers, or You know, persecution from other non-Christians, these are minor compared to the much greater persecution, the, let's say, the globalist attack upon the church that is coming.
And at the same time, remember that the church was a very powerful cultural institution of its day.
Whereas today, there are many other competing cultural institutions, such as, you know, education, like university systems, or big government, or Hollywood, or pop culture, or tech companies, you know, technology, artificial intelligence.
There are many different areas today that are much stronger, and some of which didn't even exist, of course, back nearly 2,000 years ago.
The church was the power center Other than government in the local communities of the day.
In fact, you could call it a, like a tripolar power structure.
You had government, you had the church, and then you had the merchants.
So, you know, government power, religious power, and money power.
These three dominated for thousands of years.
And the power balance between these three institutions was always in flux.
And of course, the Roman government wanted to approve the church members, which they did.
They controlled, for the most part, who could be a priest in the church.
And the government attempted to assert control over the merchants, the money people, who you could call them today bankers or banksters, the people who lent money and who charged usury or interest rates on the money.
But within the institution of the church, it was very easy because of the strong power of the church, it was very easy for people to be overcome with kind of a celebrity status arrogance as they were worshipped by the people in their city as it was very easy for people to be overcome with kind of a A lot of men, men with weak morals and some women like Jezebel,
found it very easy to take advantage of their church positions and use it for their own personal financial gain or to wield found it very easy to take advantage of their church positions and use it for their own personal financial gain or to wield power over other people or to engage in
Or to acquire incredible riches through immorality and kind of to run around town as the robe-wearing church leader, getting all fattened up on all the free buffets and all the parties or whatever was going on at the time.
I guess they would call them, you know, holidays.
The church was a very easy place for corruption to creep in because the church was so incredibly powerful.
It's hard to be corrupt in a church in the modern world if you have no money and no following and nobody's listening to you.
You know, like, it's very hard to be corrupt in that kind of scenario.
But back in the day, it was very easy to be corrupt.
And so if you think about what Christ Had to do repeatedly, even when he was alive, he was correcting the churches and then his disciples, notably John and others, and then Timothy, we've covered both of those, they spent a lot of time trying to correct the churches.
And then here we are, even in the book of Revelation with the same message.
Why is this the case?
Because the church kept failing God over and over and over again.
And I would argue that this continues to this day with churches bowing down to big government and shutting their doors during COVID lockdowns, or telling their flocks to get vaccinated with biological depopulation weapons, or refusing to teach the whole Bible, or pushing transgenderism.
Or LGBT themes within their church temples, which become satanic temples when they have like demon horn wearing drag queens teaching their Bible school kids.
You know, that's, that's a problem.
So today the church has become incredibly corrupt.
And today some of the mega churches have become absurdly wealthy, but not by doing good deeds, rather by just collecting money from their people.
And having everybody pledge more and more money to them and then using that money to buy, you know, luxury jets and luxury buildings and to dress like kings with jewelry and just, you know, luxury everything.
And that's exactly what Christ spoke against.
Beware of the megachurch that asks so much from its people and yet delivers so little to the people.
And that's an abomination.
And the thing is, God sees it all.
Every letter says here that God sees you.
God is watching.
God knows your mind and your heart.
If you're a church leader, you can't trick him.
See, look, I know your works, tribulation and poverty, but you are rich.
And I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
I mean, you can't escape the scrutiny of God, but a lot of people still try to this day, and some of them wave Bibles around, and some of them claim to be leaders, even like the leader of the Vatican, for that matter, who is of questionable moral character, in my opinion, but I'm not going to delve into that debate right here.
Anyway, here's the point.
When I say, or you say, that the Church has become corrupt, we are in good company, because that's what God said, too.
That's what Christ said.
That's what John the Apostle said, time and time and time again.
So it is not, it's not wrong for us to point out where the Church has fallen.
It's not wrong for us to call out other church leaders when they have turned away from the teachings of Christ.
For example, if you have church leaders today that are pro-war and pushing mass bombing campaigns and pushing ethnic cleansing or pushing the killing of women and children, they would have been called out by God.
I mean, they will be called out by God.
And it's not wrong for us to call them out and say, wait a second, that is not what Christ taught.
Christ taught love and peace wherever possible.
Yes, self-defense, if someone comes into your home seeking to commit eminent violence, you are absolutely allowed to use whatever tools of the time, the sword or the rifle, to defend yourself.
Absolutely.
But you do not go out and initiate violence upon others and then claim to be doing that in the name of the Lord.
That is blasphemy.
And God knows your heart.
So yes, a lot of churches today are making the exact same mistakes as the churches in what year would this have been referring to here?
I don't know, like a few years after the death of Christ, maybe 60 AD, 70 AD, I don't know, something like that.
Actually, let me look it up so we can get, let's see what the scholars say.
Okay, here we go.
I wasn't that far off.
It says that he wrote the Book of Revelation during the reign of Emperor Domitian.
That was 81 AD to 96 AD.
So, there you go.
And it said that John was around 80 to 90 years old when he wrote this book.
It said that he was born around 10 AD.
So, anyway.
You get the idea.
It's around that time.
So it's a theme that is very much alive and relevant to us today.
And it's something that we need to remember.
And to those who say, well, you're never allowed to criticize the church.
Well, God did.
Again, and again, and again, in harsh terms.
And that's the thing.
You know what I'm sick of?
I hate to use such strong language, but I'm sick of churches compromising.
And, you know, you think about it.
Here we go.
That's the church of Pergamos.
Purgatory, Pergamos, right?
The compromising church.
When churches compromise, then they become temples to Satan.
Can you hear my rooster?
He's out there singing right now.
Every time I start preaching, he starts crowing.
There he is, going at it.
But we are right to call out churches that have turned against God.
This is something that God has joined us in doing, and Christ has joined us in doing, and it is important that if we stray, as people of faith, it's important for others to also call us out and to have a gentle reminder at first with maybe increasing escalation that you better get back on the right track.
And I believe, by the way, that the level of correction should be proportional to the level of the sin or the mistake.
So if somebody in a church or a church leader makes a small mistake, they should have a small correction.
But if you're the church leader, if you're the, like, let's say the Jezebel, if you're the church leader and you are engaged in immoral sexual intercourse with half the congregation, well, that's not a small error.
You're not.
You need to be rebuked in a big way with big words.
I mean, Christ said, I'll kill your children.
I'm not saying that you should today run around threatening to kill anybody's children, but I am saying that Christ or the Lord saying that through John is a measure of the degree of the sin.
Just to be clear.
I'm a man of peace, and I believe in the rule of law, and I don't believe in initiating violence at all.
So please deal with people peacefully.
But we have the right to use words that speak the truth to those who are diverting from the teachings of God.
And it is true that God himself frequently threatened people with death, and frequently carried out those threats, and killed hundreds of people at a time in the Old Testament.
As we have been through.
I mean, again, go back to Numbers.
You'll see lots of things, or Exodus for that matter.
You see many examples of that.
So, these are big boy rules.
What you do matters.
And I believe the Tribulation has either begun, or perhaps we are in the beginning stages of it, or if not, it is imminent.
And that's what we're going to cover next.
As we continue with the book of Revelation.
So if you've enjoyed this sermon, we have a lot more for you at abundance.church.
I'm Mike Adams.
God bless you.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for understanding if I've mispronounced anything.
Thank you for your flexibility.
If I've said something that you disagree with or you may interpret differently, I honor your view.
I honor all those who operate in good faith.
I honor good people, and it's okay if we have a little bit different take on things.
Those who I call out are typically people of bad faith, people who are evil people, and those people can include leaders of government, leaders of corporations, sometimes leaders of churches as well.
So let's stay true to the teachings of Christ and God, and this is why it's important that we read the Scripture.
That's why I'm reading this for you together, in case you've forgotten these words, then it's important to reread them, learn from them, and apply them in our own lives.
So God bless you.
Again, Mike Adams here.
Abundance.Church is where you can find more sermons, and we shall continue with the book of Revelation.
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