Revelation Part 3

Good morning. How is everyone today?

And y'all hear me. Are y'all asleep or about? What's going on here this morning? So, glad to see everybody today in the house was today. It's amazing. I'm excited about what God has been doing, what he's been doing it. It's a little warmer here today. I have no idea why except to say it, but warm outside as well that we're going to try to do my best to fight through it, and enjoy it. Today. Got something special for leave. Every week will be come to the house of the Lord. All right, so we coming with expectation. We come in. Believing God is the really has something for us and we coming to get you nowhere, that mindset to engage with him. He's not going to force the stuff on YouTube. He's just not, that's not the kind of guy that we have. He's the gentleman. and if you, if you really want some of him know, Then you're going to engage him, you're going to reach out to him. Now, some people would say that they say, well, let's just not my personality, I'm not talking about your personality. I'm not talking about when I'm talking about is, when God begins to put something inside of you, too hard for you to

Is an expression that I can pull up and it begins to think. We need to come in with an expectation that God is going to be out of it.

You know, we do things a little different here we have, I don't pass an offering, we don't pass it on. We see giving it back of obedient. Why you show God you love him. The word tells us that Christ did not come to abolish the law but to raise the standard. Do you know what the standard that he came to raise? If it's one of your hard, I heard several of our men, this past week and it texts you talkin about the heart. how about it's about the heart case of God wants your heart today and then when you do find his heart, Obedience is just a natural response and everything and every part of your life in in in your worship and giving and your Worship in the end and the way, you know, put your life out there for him, the way you serve and every what would you stay with me this morning?

You've got to speak into your heart right now about giving whatever it is. Several ways. You can do that first week and bring it and put it down here this morning and it's, it's your heart. And did you put that action to it? Okay. If you can put it in here, it's also ways you can do it online. You can give online. You can, you know,

Bridgepoint tc.com, you can do face live, you can do all these things and then or if you don't feel comfortable any that I didn't, you don't feel comfortable coming down when there's a place but you can do it when you leave here today. We don't want you to feel too comfortable about it. We just want you to be obedient in it. Amen. Amen. Let's Worship in today. Let's put him up on this first song that we're going to do it, so it's a little bit, it's a little bit, you know. Jumping and jumping is okay. It's little bit Lively. And I'm not get Lively. Okay. It might be a little bit of anointing and I might just let the annoying flow little bit if that's alright, is that okay with you? So, lets us. Look, look up the name of Jesus today, but praise him, let's worship Him, and let's celebrate him. Come on. Put your hands together. Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord. Amen. Hallelujah.

Merida.

Yes, he still worried that your men. He still worthy. Thank you Jesus, thank you. Jesus! Hallelujah! Praise you in this place. Hallelujah. Can I get a little music in the background?

Hallelujah. God uses the word me today. Am I phrase? You know the the word, hallelujah means the highest praise to give him your highest, praise the words to put, everything else below what you're doing, at that time for him. And that's really the way our life should be lived. Everything is below what I worship for him looks like a mint. It's what he's called is to ask what he wants from his. So I wanted to take a few moments if I could this one, I believe there's some Special needs things that we need to pray about. First of all, want to ask you to pray about a special need that your pastor has today. I'm not going to throw it out there, what it is kind of an unspoken request, but I have some direction to my own life that I need. And I'd ask you to pray for me today and I wanted to ask for everybody to buy their head and close her eyes. If you could just for a moment and to tell me, you know, just to think about it at the moment, there's something you need prayer for, do you need God to move in your life? May be in someone's life that, you know, someone that, you know, their family or than this situation, or maybe somebody on your job, or maybe there's something going on in your health, or your finances are in those things. And let me tell you something, the reason why we are here this morning is not because I just out of some following of a routine and ritual. We're here this morning because we believe and we come together, the power of God is exponentially becomes like compound interest that the guy Is the grow and get larger, and bigger, and we can call upon the name of Jesus, and we know that he'll hear our prayer and then he'll hear our prayer this morning. He'll answer our prayer. So, I, if you have a special need this one, would you slip in hand up? Nobody, looking around. No eyes open. So either, we just think you're right now. God, you're so amazing. You're so amazing. We believe. God, you got great, and you got a great plan for our life. We thank you, Jesus, for all your wonderful things. Now, if you would, if you want to this morning, I'm just going to ask if you have something you'd like, for listen to have some people that would pray with you this morning. I have a couple of guys that are going to be down here front. Ronnie, could you come in and Victor? Could you come down and and you know we're just going to begin to pray and they were going to begin to sing another song and if you feel like, you need to pray this morning in any way. Just need God to move in your life. In some circumstances situation. I'm asking today, she's going to step out. Take that step of Faith be bold. And what you believe and ask God for father, I praise you this morning. I thank you God, for what you doing. I think you got that. You're in control. Thought I had today, that you just move that you, you just move in this place guide. You begin to touch Our Lives. We come. And we bring, and we laid all of our circumstances. That all of our situations down at the altar today.

Every way. Father.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Second screen.

Newport News shipyard Mason. Thank you for.

Hahaha.

Thank you. Jesus. We praise you with this place this morning guy, we give you honor. We give you glory. You're worthy cheese. Speak your heart today. God God. Let us hear your hear your voice. Let us hear your voice today, Jesus. You're worthy. We come before you today. We lay our lives down before your feet. Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you. Jesus. Have your way. Geez, we ask these things in Jesus name. Hallelujah, hallelujah, you may be seated.

Hallelujah. If you would just continue to focus with me this morning and let God move, he's he's moving in my life so those are up here. You don't want to move too fast, we don't want to get out in front too much. Besides God, that you have your money. You have your way Keys. Have your way. Lord. Robert miniature. Carhartts today, ministered our lives they got Heavyweight.

We praise, you give honor Me with Your Glory. You

Hallelujah.

We just for a moment, just close your eyes and begin to concentrate on him.

Cheese cheese.

Good morning.

And God said, let there be light. Never slight. And then God said it was good. That's right, that's right. Listen them, you know,

Sometimes I know that. The. Text stuff gets in the way if we allow it. Sometimes things got to try to do something completely different and that stuff we try to automate a lot of its with automatically takes place and stuff like that. But I want you to know that that don't let that distract you don't let it distract you from what God really trying to do okay. Cuz so y'all can do more in a moment of a person surrendering their life and and given them an issue and something over to him. He can do more in just a moment. Then we can do in a lifetime trying to fix that are so. So there's a, there's an important, there's a priority and I want to put that on the Holy Spirit and the Annoying. And I want to make sure that you understand that today, okay? So just work with us as we try to work into the flow and make sure we got it. Okay. I've got great plans for what he wants to do with this particular body. I believe that and I'll be honest with you when it's been seasons in my life when I have not often felt that I felt like well maybe got his done with us but I tell you there's something right now. I don't know what it is. I just believe God is really, really about to do something special that we won't understand, because it'll be way beyond our ability. It'll be so explosive it'll be beyond anything. We could have even maybe a thought or fathom or drink. That's what God has told us. He's able to do things. We can't even fathom. We can't even think I'm up in her own mind, sometimes, and God can do God can bring about things that we could even think about. Amen. So let's let's continue this a couple of weeks ago, the Book of Revelation, not the Book of Revelations, The Book of Revelation when it is the letter to the seven, churches in Asia Minor. And I told you in that very first week, this would be our third week into the into the series. And I told you the very first week that I was going to give you some words for each message and each chapter, but I wanted you to be able to remember. So last week, all the very first week was not a chapter, the very first week in the series was a, a cipher. And so we talked about how in the Book of Revelation, there has to be a cipher, there has to be a code or a way to break the code. That is done here. Now, you know, I was reading this past week about the Book of Revelation and we are very custom in Scripture that we see it written to us for us in the here in the now. In other words it speaks to us right? Where we are but when you look at the Book of Revelation, we find that John was only out of politeness. And he have been exiled there, he had been put there because of his, his faithfulness to Jesus, his faithfulness to the gospel. His faithfulness to the word. And if we read in the first chapter, we see something that's kind of very odd to us in the, in the about this book and that is his, that Jesus speaks to him that we want to understand that John was just the person that put it to pain. But Jesus is the narrator of the scripture that Jesus didn't say write down this thing that I tell you, he says, write down the things that you see. So what we're getting in the Book of Revelations is we're getting John painting. A picture of the things that Jesus is showing him and other word that leaves a brand new step to the to the ability to interpret what's going on there. In other words there a lot of things in here that we got to look through. So we have to figure out. Okay, what is the picture? That is being painted here and then what's the meaning of the picture? You see what I'm saying? It show. Changes the way that we approach. It also told you the second week which is the first chapter. What was the word? It was the gal on, it talks about the things, you have seen, the things you are seeing and the things you will see, it talks about in the things you have seen. The scripture is pointing to the fact that Jesus John saw Jesus die. Be resurrected and Ascend to Heaven. These are the things he had seen. These are the things that he was still the in that age that he would. He had seen it happen. But it had been 60. Some-odd years earlier that he had experienced that they were the things he had thing and then it says the things you are seeing. In other words, they are things that John begin to see in that moment that would be prophetic but they were to a particular people within that beats is a a book or a letter that has been written to the seven churches in Asia Minor know. They were many more we know their worth and we talked about the number seven being symbolic. This is the part of the picture that job. Good job was trying to decipher for us. He saw these things and he painted it for us and then it is up to us to realize what 77 is a word. Bluetooth completion is a number that talks about completion. And when you take the seven churches and you begin to look at them, you will see the way it works in time coming together into a clockwise manner in Asia Minor pointing to 7. But, you know, we think about a clock, we think about 12 hours and they were more than seven churches. So why is there only seven that were spoken to in the clock that we see in Asia? Minor will a part of that is the fact that they were seven seasons of the church that needed to be tied into seven seasons of our life. We know that there are great things that we talked about last week, also we've been pointing to the, the different, all the different types of churches that were out there. So the very first chapter is the outline, the things you have seen, the things you will see, and the things that will you will see in the future way out there, we are living in the Second phase of that. We are living in what they call the church age. And there's defining places in Scripture that point to these ages. First of all we need to know that the first chapter was talked about the things that he would lie would say the outline, the second chapter begins the church age which is the the letters, the letters and then the third chapter would be

Okay, I did tell you this but you probably didn't get it because I didn't teach on it last week, okay, two and three go together. It's the letters churches letters to the churches. Okay, to what I say, chapter 3, we're going to stay churches and see if there's 22 chapter, so we get to the end, I should be able to say one, two, three, four, and you are going to have a reference, going to go back to this for the rest of your life. Hopefully, that's my prayer that you will be. We talked about ever since last week and how they were a church that we begin it. All it was right after it was the popular cage where John was still living and how they had. He was speaking to them and they talked about going back to their first, love the scripture talks about in the first chapter in the second chapter talks about that has to be in the ones that have lost their first love. I send out a text this week and I said there are three things 3 words, you need to remember in the end. The second chapter about Ephesus and that is he give them. Formula to be able to get back to their first love. First of all, remember remember where you come from? Remember where I brought you from, remember what I've done for you remember? And then it says to repent. And other words, remember what I've done for you and you turned your lost before slug, you turned your back, on me, you kind of made it to where I'm haphazardly part of a relationship with you and it tells you to repent of the things that you've done wrong to bring you back in the right relationship with me, that your heart is now cleansed and cleared and ready to receive the fullness of I am. And then it talks about repeat, we need to repeat this over and over in our life. That's that's how you get back to your first love. How many of you found yourself in a place this week where you needed to remember? To repent. And to realize you need to repeat that more than once. I do it every week. Every day I try to remember what God has done for me because the truth is, if I don't remember what he's done for me, I will start to think that some of the things that are great in my life, I've brought him into my life and made them happen. I'll start to think that I'm the one that's doing those things. And then I'll also when things are quite going, the way I wanted to, I don't think it's up to me to make the right thing happened to instead of remember and then repent. And then we're like

I remember I repent and then I rely upon him to handle the situations, he takes care of me and then I repeat this over and over my life and that's how I stay focused on him to the best of my ability. Because anytime I tell you something, like it by myself. Sometimes, I'm either one or two places. I'm either in the repeat of the, remember the repeat dent repair guy and repeat thing or I'm going to wrong run, I'm going wrong way. I'm getting further away from God. I am on. May, I mean, if I'm remembering, and I'm repenting of the things that my thoughts. They sometimes the biggest challenge in our life to think we most needed to repent of isn't our fault.

Do we want to put that 5 aside because your thoughts very things that begin to infect, you eat internally? They they affect the thing that he's most certainly came after which is the hard knot that box. The heart. He came to change your heart. To make that the difference in your life. Who quit being so selfish. And thinking about yourself, I was at all, what it, what about me? What do I like? I'm just going to make it happen. I'm going to do it. Gospel say no no quit worrying about that. I want your heart and then rely upon me to give you directions and how to get to the place where I want you to be.

Say when you're when you're doing it about yourself than you, you think you got a plan and you think your plans the best plans? You think your way of doing things is the best way to do it, right? That's that's where we all we, we want to do it, I said we want to make it happen ourselves. We want to we want to take credit for it ourself and it's when you get to that place where you remember what he's already done that you realize what he can do and then you want to repent because you thought bad and now you need to retreat rely upon the fact that he can do what he did before again, do you hear me this morning we need to have a different approach and that's the formula for getting back to a place where God is your first love. Jesus is your first love. Don't forsake, your first love. Let me tell you something. You can't take one more step in the faith. Without your first love.

You can't not. You're at any time, you get to a place where you forgotten and you're not remembering what he's done for you and the like that. He's giving you the love that he has for you. You're, you're walking away from the fake, you walking away from Jesus. You're not walking to work them. You're not going towards him. You got to remember what he did for you. Where were you headed? I got to tell you where, at where I was headed with prison, where I was at. It was probably death where I was headed with a life of Torment of diction all types of things, because I have that type of stuff in my family. And I know that without Jesus being the directing factor, that keeps me on the straight and narrow sea, I want to be that one that he talks about the phones, the narrow way and not the wide Road. I want to be in this stay straight towards him and I have to remember where he's brought me from and even the place where maybe I never got to deliver me from it, because he kept me on the Jordan Air from the moment that he found it, he engage me and gave me. I gave him my heart. All I had time since I've been up and down, but I'm telling you, when you pursue That's the worksheets about, it's about Pursuit. We coming here on Sunday morning, it's about Pursuit. It's about watering a little bit. Taking that sees, it's been planning and beginning to have it, be nurtured, so we can grow inside of us and against the well up inside of us, become bigger, better stronger. And it's something that is nourishment to our body. Amen. Hallelujah. So today I want to talk to you about the second church. Now we I want to dive into this really quick and I'ma hit it cuz you know, there's some framework stuff that I laid out for you last week and I want to also hit this morning. Really quick is well first they are three perspectives that we need to look at First various, we call in the seven churches. The way that this all works together points to the fact that God is in control, he's in control of all this, he's controlled time. He's in troll of every situation. Every Circumstance, the only way this all works together is if somebody there's a Creator, there's some figure that's working behind the scenes that plan this and it's working it out. First of all, we found that we have the, we have epices there. Now, if we talked about the literal interpretation of this passage of scripture, we know that they were seven little churches in Asia Minor, right? And all of them had a pastor and all of them had men that were our leaders over them and all of them had had had issues and it had good things that had bad things about in that moment and this letter was written to them specifically in that context, it is a historical approach and we have to be able to see this through a historical approach. We also have to be willing and able to look at it through what they do at Universal or at the time list approach, will we know that each of these churches, they are representative a different time frames throughout history. We know that evidence was representative of the time, right? After right. After bucks a hundred a d up until about 3:13 of AD. We know that that's what they were there for. It was speaking to them, it was shared with him that and we know that we can represent. Let me tell you something about. That is so cool. We look at this also through prophetic. And I think people kind of get lost in the fact that this is prophetic. Sometimes they seven churches just pathetic. It represent, it actually spoke to seven different time frames in the church that we're going to come packed the past in church history throughout church history. Since the Ascension into Heaven by Jesus, Best prophetic, but the only way it would ever be seen as prophetic is from the down. Today we are in today See the person that people never said they couldn't see that there were they were his prophetic. They couldn't see if that was going to be something that is going to speak to every church or particular age the people in Smyrna, they could see that that was going to be a particular age. They could, you had to be on the other side of it to recognize it and the truth is no one would have been able to recognize the pattern until we get to the place we are now. They would have been able to recognize how big this thing is. All correlated with a specific time in history of the church. So it was prophetic from a back feel type mentality, mindset is spoke to the future, but it's for me and you, do you hear me today? It's for us, if the church to recognize that God was still in the planning process is for us to be able to see God was in control of all of his. He's always been in control of it and we can recognize that because we can look as the backfield to watch every part of the church throughout history, and he spoke to it through these historical times. It's at, I must approach it. It's prophetic and it's escapologic Lee, correct in every part of everything that we've been through.

They will be able to look back over the past two thousand years to see a correlation between these churches and everything that they've been through and everything that we are going to face today. And then the next thing you need to know is that this stuff is not just for the recognized, the seven churches and the seven times in church history, but it's also to be able to recognize the things that will make up the last days Church. The scripture speaks to the fact that Jesus is going to step out and he's coming back for a church without spot or blemish. And when we look at the seven things that are in these churches, that were some rewards that was some commendations, there was some things that were supposed to then it was really good, was good. It was Godly love that about him, he loved it about, but there are also some things that he would speak to, and not every Church got commendations and not every Church got the, the, the the thing that would say this is not what I want. But when you taking you make a list, you see what the church looks like that. He's coming back for and now we have a visual way of looking at number one, what the church that we are should look like. But we also know that when we have those things within our church, our church is made up of individual with the right heart about those things.

So you get to look into spectacle, you get to look inside of you and you get to take say about the effect me, I'm out this way. Do I do this at Midas? Well, other side of this, I'm really we get to look at herself. It's a, it's a way for us to gauge our relationship with God and the way that we should gauge our relationship with each other, Going to pick up in verses 8 and chapter 2. We were talking about at this point, the Church of Smyrna it says to the angels of the church is Smyrna, right? The first of the last who was dead and who has come to light since this, I know your tribulations and your poverty but you were rich and the blasphemy blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not for a synagogue of Satan.

Synagogue of Satan, a church that is inhabited by things of Satan.

Do not fear what you are about to suffer behold. The devil is about the cat, some of his of you into prison, so that you will be tested and you will have a tribulation for 10 days, be faithful until the end. Be faithful unto 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 will not be hurt by the second death.

As we learned last week, that each of these churches names actually have a significance that they play the name of the word. Smyrna is actually Smyrna in the Greek. It is it mean to bother you? No more with like us a perfume? It was a it's kind of like a rising or a type of sticky type stuff that did. That has a great fragrance but they made a lot of perfumes and things out of. We see this in scripture when they came before Christ, when he was in the in the the stable when he was born. That's one of the gift that was given to him. He received it, but here's the deal. Mostly with this was used for back in this time was to embalm bodies. The dead people. It was something that was put on them to make them to where they wouldn't stink. I wouldn't smell bad. It would it would take their bodies and would help preserve them. It would give us a very nice. Sweet fragrance to them. He's an even as they they were dead. Today is Margaret's called Isler and it's still thriving at the city in Turkey right now. It's a little bit larger City now, a thriving City, but we also know that the like like a lot of other cities in that area. Smyrna at the time, really wasn't anything, what you would call special? It was just another Roman city. It was another Roman city it had, but it was talked about her. Had this great presents about what they call Emperor. Worship know, when do the Roman Empire became about worshiping Caesar. Caesar was one of the generals who helped conquer the the different things that history through in the Roman Empire, and then he became the Caesar or the emperor, and then they tried to raise him to God, like, Status and everybody was to worship Him and this was the center for that place that happened. There's we read that passage of scripture in the in the end of revelation. We also see that this church is a church that is going through. But suffering, we're going through much torment, they're going through they're being tortured and things like that. So it's probably at this point that we see this start to take place, they're very in the middle of this place of torture and torment because they will not bow down. They will not surrender, they will not quit working. Do you know that as soon as after a while In, in the Roman Empire there was one religion and that was the worship of the emperor, okay? But there was one. Other religion. It was allowed to, I guess, exist. And that was the Judaism, the Jews were able to still worship their gods, but they were the only SEC. They were able to do that. Do you know why? Because they were too stubborn to change. They were too stubborn to give in to it. So I kind of caught that is funny. Because that's the kind of people we need to be. We need to be the kind of people that are too stubborn to give in to the world place. We need to be too stubborn about about what the world is telling us is, right? We need to be, we need to stand up on the principles that God has given us. And we can trust him and believe in him and realize that, you know what, there may be coming a day and a time even in our life where we may have to lay our like them for it and be willing to. Now, I think that's an introspective question that we all need to ask herself.

because if you're not to the place in your life, where you going to lay down your life, For Jesus. The truth is you're not, you're not where you need to be. The truth is probably. And I hate to say this cuz I'm not judgemental, but I believe the word judges, this is way you probably not safe.

I believe the word judge that way. You're not willing to lay down your life. Now, I know what people are going to say. Sometimes you can say that, well, Pastor, Andy, I'm willing to lay down my life but I don't need to know that. That's what I'm laying down my life for And that takes us back to the last year. So, when we've looked at the things of this world, and we've been fearful and scared that, we've been worried, and we've been wondering, and all this type of stuff about what was going on around us. And we tried to run from it. And I'm concerned about how many of us actually asked herself, okay, what would Jesus do?

And then I want to do that. What was the, what's the thing I should do? According to what Jesus would do in this situation? I'm scared. I'm scared of. The word tells us that we are to be willing to surrender to him, even unto death. Are you willing, are you willing to give your life over to him in such a way that you may have to die for it or you going to continue to worship the emperor?

Are you going to continue to worship your own fault process? Your own way of doing things? Are you going to continue to worship your ability to make it happen yourself?

It's nothing, but another word for idle. It's another thing Idol. Jesus did not come for a piece of you. He came for all of you. And you know what it even says in the word that you need to be willing to forsake your mama and your daddy, turn your back on your brother and your sister. For the things that, you know, are of the cross that Jesus called us to it, he gives us, he gives us the standard, he gives us the ability. I know it's been a question in all of my mind or not, all of it. Some of our minds over the last few years because of the things have been going on around it and we ask ourselves if it came down to it. Would we be willing? Hey. Don't think you're by yourself. I'm I've asked myself that. I want to believe, I am, I don't think any of us know, for sure until we're putting that situation. Do you believe? Do you believe in eternity? Do you believe that that there's something greater for you? Do you believe that there is something that is this week?

We're so much so often trying to hold on to this life, that is such a short span and sometimes we don't know why. And I I'm not telling you you shouldn't, I'm not telling you should because God's got a plan and he wants you to exist until the fight for that. But I want to tell you something, there's not one person that has gone on to be with the Lord. That would come back to this place.

There's not one.

You never had a friend of your life. You thought, they were pushing, but they kind of prematurely died. They went a little early little early. You thought they should. Let me tell you, what they wouldn't come back for 10 more years. I would come back for another moment.

I laid down their life and they would be and there's many ways to lay down your life. You know what? But the truth of it, is it. This is how you lay down your life. This how you make it happen. No matter what comes your way? You will not forsake, who Jesus is.

see some of you maybe ask one day to give your life and I mean by that unto death you could happen. Most of you probably won't though.

But the way we have to be willing to lay down our life, everybody's going to be a slate on your life that you understand me saying, not everybody got to death, but everybody's going to be asked to lay down her life. If you're not willing to lay down your life and put your agenda behind his agenda, be done with your ideas over his ideas, pursue your purpose over his purpose. When I'm just telling you right now until you're able to do that and willing to do that, you're not going to find your place. With him internity. That's what salvation really is. You know, that we make it something smaller than early as we say. We know scripture says, if it says, if you

Confess. if you ask, and if you believe,

It says I'm three things and so we think if we follow the ritual, we come down here, we confess with our mouths. It says that All right, we repent of our wrongdoing. We ask for forgiveness. And then we believe see there's a word believe, they're attached to other another word that we really have to grab a hold of. We believe in our heart. The all goes back to the heart. Heart.

a person who has, Repented. And an NN believed in their heart has no problem with laying down their life.

Not people who give lip service to it, not people who say it but people who have actually done it, they've actually turn their life over to God for his purposes. That's what he wants from us.

In the beginning. When the Church of of Smirnoff was being formed in, in in this area, you know, they kind of got accepted, the kind of got, you know, they were seeing like the Jews because the Jews they were stubborn. So we're going to let them, we're going to let them keep doing everything cuz we just don't want to deal with them. And so they were put in the same category, the Christians were put in the same category with the Jewish religion. And so they found a lot of the same types of privileges. They were even given that, you know, well we just not going to do with them. We don't like it but we're not going to deal with him. Not going to make him do for for Miss idea of Emperor worship. We're not going to do, but I don't know. But we just, you know, but by the time, I guess what there are more Christians, that are Gentiles. And then our juice So now it begins to become something that spreading outside of just the Jewish nation. And they became a people that were suffering quite a bit matter fact. They were having a late dinner life. They were being martyred on a regular basis. They were being killed all the time, they were sacrificing who they were in the moment, but would Jesus. And what God told them about the pain, not the now,

Jesus says, he's the first of the last, the one who is dead and it was come back to life. Do you believe that today? Jesus, the dress to church. With a detail about himself and everyone of these and John's description week we look in the Book of John and hit Virginia chapter 1. And we see that John is used to write every one of these descriptions of who Jesus is. Jesus died to so he knows what it's like to face death. He's not asking anything of you that he didn't ask, but he didn't ask if himself or wasn't asked of him, See there's many things that we can look at the day. We look at this passage scriptures that stuff last week, we thought about our first love and all that was all exciting. And all those things we got we could get on board with that right? We get on board with that whole go back to my first love thing. We talked about suffering for the cross. It's a little different. Recently. And I've kind of shared this with a list of things that my job that are frustrating, the dog out of me, so frustrated about it because to me, it seems so unfair and so on. I just things just don't seem right about it. Just bothers me to no end. And then I've come across this right here and I know the influence that I'm able to have in that particular area, where I'm at, sometimes in the speak into people's lives, and share the gospel and share it with. And I'm like, I'm praying, God, get me out of here. I'm praying. God remove me from this God do away with this. Get made me not be here yet. I don't want to do this. This is for me. This torture. This is not something I want to do and then God brings me to this past scriptures this on I did it. I was tortured. I was beating I was with I suffered. And who are you to think that you're not going to have to suffer? If your lord and savior had to suffer.

If a deal with thinks it'll learn to deal with them. And still be you still walking in the paths of rights to still be able. And I don't get me wrong. I still pray to God. Remove got to get me out of here. Just said, Lord, I can't take it no more.

We'll tell you when you'll do it, when he's done with me there.

What is battle be there when he's done with me there? So my prayers changed my prayers. Lord, hurry hurry and be done with me here. You know why? Cuz I don't like the idea of suffering. I don't like the idea of going through situations. I don't want to be in. I don't like the idea of none of us do. That's the Flash fighting against the spirit. That's the flesh constantly. Trying to get us to do what we makes us feel good here and it eats the flesh currently getting us, getting us to try to trade in this 80 years potential for eternity. This 80 years that we get potential, 80 years that we might have eaten, the flesh wants to trade in Eternity for this 80 years to make this 80 years. Everything's all about this 80 years if 7580 some of us maybe a hundred maximum 120 but we, we, we, we didn't want to trade our Fraternity in, for this

And so we feel it right now, right? Matter fact, you know, the hardest thing to do, When do in that situation when you first get saved, it's easy. It's easier to put all that aside but when you do walk in this journey, 40, 50, 60 years and it becomes a routine, the walk at 40, 50, 60 years, it's a routine, your life. But to think that man I'll trade it in 40 50, 60 years. 40, 50, 60 years, for that trades in for something. I don't even know. I'm believing, I'm having faith in. I'm trusting, but I haven't actually experienced yet. Have you seen it? It becomes harder. Becomes harder as you go along, it becomes harder as you walk. The path is his things as you suffer. And you go to the sufferings all these ages, all these days, all these months, all these years, all these decades, you're going through it and you and everybody else around. You seems to be being blessed more than you. You know I'm saying everybody else around you is getting blasted and said you know everything seems to be so special for them. You know. That's kind of seems like the more you live in this world. The more you do the things of this world, a more, you're blessed and everything and the lies of Satan is trying to get you to trade Eternity for this year.