Revelation 2:25-29 - July 11, 2021

But we're studying The Book of Revelation, which is regardless of where we are in it. The bible promises you a blessing for studying it. So if you feel like well, I'm really not sure what's going on. I will try to make that somewhat clear but I make no promises. Okay, so you may leave here just as confused as when you got here, but we will try. I'll try and bring you up to speed as much as I can, but I highly recommend going out to our YouTube channel and watching the services on there or you can go to our website and you if you just want to download the audio and listen to it or listen to it online. You can do that for my webpage keep Imani.com. Alright, we're going to pick up in verse 2, chapter 18, if you'd like to to follow along. It says, enter the angel of the church in thyatira. Write these things is the Son of God. It has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass. I know your Works love service face and your patience. And as for your works, the last or 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 to 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 and Those who commit adultery with her, in the Great Tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. 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 get Each one of you according to your works. Now to you, I say, and to the rest in thyatira. As many as do not have this Doctrine who have not known, the depths of Satan as they say, I will put on, you know, 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 nation's, he shall rule them with a rod of iron and they shall be dashed to pieces like a Potter's vessel as I have received from my father and I will give him the Morningstar, he who has ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Heavenly Father. We thank you this morning for your word. Lord, I Thank you for the fact that we can gather together this morning. Lord. We do lift up our brothers and sisters at Harvey Harbor, Calvary Chapel. They're closed, the Sunday due to a lot of sickness in the body. I pray that you just heal them up, restore them, and that they would be able to meet again soon, and we thank you that you are restoring them. Lord this morning when I pray that you would help us. As we tackle this passage Lord that we would engage with our minds and that we will open our hearts to receive your truth or that we would continue to. Look at your word as what it was meant to be. Is your your instructions for Life Garden. Do we just ask that you would speak to us this morning? And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. 2 in the Book of Revelation, it has its own outline. For those of you just joining us. This is the, the outline that we are using chapter 1. Verse 19, the Apostle John was given this instruction, write the things which you seen and the things which are and the things which will take plant place after this. And so we're in the second half of that. He wrote what he thought. He saw the resurrected glorified Christ, in the midst of the churches, that was chapter one and it was quite a scene. If you remember didn't look anything like he looked when he walked on the earth, he looked very different eyes of fire mouth. It's spoken word, like a sword that came out. Shiny, like signed bronze or brass. He definitely looked different powerful. And now, we're in the second part. He's writing about the things which are the church, right? Chapters 2 & 3 are all about the church. In fact, a Jesus gives specific letters to seven churches. Number seven is the number of completion in the Bible. It's the number of perfection. So it's not necessarily meant to only represent the physical seven churches that it was written to, which they were actual churches, that existed at that time, but it was also meant to represent the church as a whole, because as we see as he describes what's going on any church, we can look throughout church, history, and see that those things have taken place in the church, historically. And we will get to the things that will come after the church age later on. In this book, The reason we talk about the church age is because everything in God's plan pertains to Israel, but in Daniel chapter 9, there was a prophecy that said when Messiah would come and be cut off, not for himself. In other words, he would be put to death, but not on his up because of his own. But because of ours, basically that stopped this time clock of God's plan for Israel and he had given very detailed about how long it would be in the Messiah would come. And we looked at that in-depth. Basically, when Jesus came into rode into Israel into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. It was on the exact date that Bible prophesied, that Messiah would come to Israel, but we know that Jesus saw them that day and he wept over is Jerusalem because he said you didn't know the hour of your The patient rights. So he was put to death, not because of his own sin, but on our behalf and that stop the time clock for God's dealing with Israel. And what started at that moment was this age of Grace, where Gentiles could become part of God's plan for the church age. And after Jesus died and Rose from the grave, the church began. White people coming to Faith by putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and what he did and that's the time. We find ourselves in right now. Now in the Old Testament, the Old Testament doesn't talk about the church. It was a mystery from the standpoint of the Old Testament. This idea that the Messiah would come and die. It was in there but it was so hidden. They couldn't see it. Right. I mean, it made allusions to it. Obviously think passages like Isaiah 53 and places in the songs like Psalm 22 where they made the solution to it, but they couldn't get it right from the prophets perspective. They just saw the Messiah coming in power and that he would come and he would rule the Earth. That's going to happen one day, but that's all they saw. They missed all this other stuff in between Calvary and the gospel going forth in the church being born and his coming would be his second coming in coming in power. So that's all they really They were expecting Messiah to come kick out the the Romans and take power. Right? And we could see that from the New Testament. That was the expectation of the Apostles when they were with Jesus. They would like to know. When are you going to do when you get to stablish your kingdom, right? They didn't understand what was happening. But now we can see it. Now. The Apostle Paul called The Church a mystery. And so it wasn't seen but now we have it and we're here and we're studying this time of the church. And we're going to study at 4 from 4 aspects. And we talked about this before, but I wanted you to keep this at the Forefront of her mind. We look at it in the store local context, who were these churches throughout the whole book of Revelation, where to look at the history behind what was happening at the time and the people that were the first. Here's our first readers, or the first receiver of this prophecy. Second. We'll talk about how it pertains to us corporately as a church as the church Universal. As the Church of Jesus Christ, that is in existence on the Earth today. We will talk about again, how it personally impacts us, because this is remember, this is a revelation of Jesus, right? It's not the revelation of John, we have that, if it's as the title of this book, but that's not what it's about the word. The word of this, the title of the book is apocalypso in the, in the Greek, which means the revealing, and it's the revealing of Jesus. And so as we study this book, every time we open the book, we should be looking. Where's Jesus? How is he being revealed to me? Personally, in this, what is my at the application that I can take from this today? When I read a passage, like we read just now where Jesus identifies himself as the Son of God, right? The one whose feet are like burnished bronze, we could take him, we can apply that infect, Brian did a great job of that two weeks ago when he when he talked it if I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about this passage. We're going to zero in on one particular area this morning because we're building a foundation for what we're going to get to later on in the book. So and then of course, we'll study prophetically. Cuz that's the way the Book of Revelations written at the very beginning of this book. John declares that this is a book of Prophecy and the word prophecy. There is the word used for for telling things that are going to happen in the future. So this entire book is meant to be for us, a book of Prophecy of things that are yet to come. So, as I said chapters, 2 & 3 are the church age and so I've got a flight here. We had shown this before, but basically each of these churches corresponds to a time period in history of the church. So I want you to understand how that works. So each one of them with a physical church. That was that was there at that time. But when you delve into what Jesus wrote to that church, you realize he's talking about something bigger. And remember it's a book of Prophecy. From John's perspective, do from John's perspective. The things that Jesus is talking about in these churches are yet to come. Even though he's writing to churches that exist at that time. And we already talked about F the Church of Ephesus that the early church that beginning of the Gospel, the first hundred years of the church will really 70 years of the church. From the time, Christ, died and rose again, the Church of Ephesus and then the Church of Smyrna that church that was persecuted. App, starting with the church of Smyrna each of these churches still exist or at least aspects of that church still exist within the church today. So there is a part of the Church of Christ right now that is suffering for their faith are being persecuted. Many are dying for their faith around the world in very, very dark places. So while the Church of Smyrna was specifically. First, 200 years after the early church began to really spread out and really start to suffer persecution and there was a very very pronounced effort to Stamp Out, Christianity from 182 around 383 1280. There was just this concerted effort from one Caesar one Emperor after another. Try to outdo the one before in trying to destroy Christianity, killing Christians, wholesale through feeding, you know, the history feeding them to the Lions and all of those kinds of things trying to wipe out Christianity. And that was the church at Smyrna and that was the church historically. That was persecuted Beyond things that we could even imagine that they that they endured. And then we talked last 3 weeks ago about the church upper campus, the church that all the sudden Christianity became legal and not only legal, it became encouraged Constantine, the emperor of Rome. He saw how powerful the Christian church had become and he garnered the Christian of his side. So they would help him take power and, and take over the Empire. And when he did that, he made an edict. I called the Edict of Milan that says, hey, Christianity, is that legal? They can, they can worship freely. And in fact, he began to systematically allow the Christians to take over the Pagan temples and turn them into churches. We talked about that help are there was just compromise. He wanted to keep the pagan people of Rome happy, and they didn't want a war between the Christians and the pagans who were now all of his subjects. So, emperor, Constantine came up with this great idea. We will just go into the temples and if it's a temple to Aphrodite, the statue of Aphrodite, those are married now, right? And we will go into the temple temples of Isis and we'll say, you know, this statue of Isis and and her child Horace. That's that's Mary and baby Jesus now and they just went through the whole self kind of renamed everything and we'll see how this began to compromise the church. The Christians were just happy to have a place to worship openly and freely, but the problem is compromised. That's where we ended up with the church by Tyra that compromise turned to corruption. Because if not only did it compromise the church, but it began to corrupt the church as the Christians began to practice. And mailed the practices of the Pagan into their Christian worship instead of keeping it separated. And that's where we end up today. And why Jesus is having this conversation with the church at site IRA and that is because they got a problem. Now, I'm not going to go into any detail really about the place of by Tyra again. Go back 2 weeks. Unless Brian is teaching on this letter to this church, but they were known for their good works and for their love and surface. And so Jesus did commend them for that. But he had a serious problem with them because they allowed some woman to come in that. They, he referred to, as Jezebel know whether or not her name was really Jezebel. He was referring to the Old Testament. Jezebel, who was who trying to become the type, or typification of someone who was who try to corrupt the people of God, right? That's what the, The Jezebel in the Old Testament did. And he says, those are the things that Did she cause sexual immorality become rampant in the church and corrupted his servants? Now, in the, the Greek there, that's really talking about those who are meant to serve. The people that is pastors. The pastor's, those that work supposed to be ones who were serving the people and leading them became corrupted by her teaching, her doctrines. And totally unrepentant of it. And she promoted this doctrine of the depths of Satan. Now, as we talked about, if you go to Matthew Chapter 13, Jesus gives a series of what is called, the kingdom parables. I don't want to confuse you too much and I don't want you to spend a whole lot of time, trying to figure out all this, but just understand, Jesus gives several different Parables of the Kingdom. He gives them. They correspond exactly to the seven types of churches. We see here in chapters two and three. And that's because the kingdom of God, which we have on Earth today, which is the church, that is, his kingdom established in our hearts, as his representation on Earth. We are the kingdom of God as it exists today on Earth. And that Kingdom has looked different down Through the Ages. And people always would wonder, hey, you know, why did he give seven different Parables and they were all somewhat different from one another. Well, that's because the church has been different down Through the Ages and how it has how it has behaved and acted and and how it has interacted with the world. And so each of these, as we've talked about have gotten successfully or successively worse. Write started out with the, the gospel going forth, and some heard it and received it that the parable of the sower. But as we've gone, you know, the Church of pergamum us was that the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed at two, smallest all see better grow into a giant tree, which is not what a mustard seed supposed to do and then the birds came and nested in the Bible Birds. Generally speaking are bad, any time they show up, it's not a good thing for the birds nested in its branches show talking about the compromising of the church. And so today, we have this Parable that Jesus spoke in Matthew 13, does the Kingdom of Heaven is like 11, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of Mill, till it was all 11. All these things. You just spoke to the multitude in Parables and without a parable. He did not speak to them. Do Jesus have begun by giving us the key. Of what The Parables meant, when he, he interpreted the very first one. If you remember that, was that the the seed or the weed? That's the gospel going forth. The fruit of that would be the wheat, right? That comes up. The fruit of the Gospel, is the distance. We Are The World is the field. The sower, is those who were giving out the work, and he goes to, and he defines the same for every one of these. Kingdom Parables, we can draw the conclusion that here. We have a woman who hides 11 in three Majors as meal or three Majors as meal or the, the result of the seed, right? That's the week. That's the fruit of the Gospel going forth. Therefore, that's a picture of the church. And in fact, these three measures of meal would be very common to the Jewish person because they understand that the author of three Majors that was that was The Fellowship offering. It was to be baked and consecrated, and it was to be what unleavened bread and I was supposed to have 11 in it with 3, unlimited XP offer beautiful before the Lord, as a fellowship offering just as the churches in fellowship with the Lord through Christ, who is the bread of life is, come down from heaven, right? So, we have this picture here of someone, taking that bread, which was supposed to be unleavened. That was supposed to represent the fellowship of God's people with Kim supposed to represent the fruit of the Gospel going forth and she hides 11 in it. Now, what does that mean for us? Well in the Bible, Levin is always meant to represent sin pollutes. It spreads just as Levin does when it corrupts the do and makes it that's the back. I guess I'll gas in it, it rises, right? Do we have to ask ourselves? Who is this woman? That Jesus is talking about. How does it pertain to the church age? Right? Prophetically speaking. Remember, he's talking to a church who had one he Likens to Jezebel and there were in this area. If I carrier that is the years 1590 to 1517 ad which would be from the beginning of the of the organized Church. Tell the Reformation. So when I say organized church, I'm talking about from the moment, the church became the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Okay, that's happened around 1598 it. Now, before I go any further. I want to make a very clear distinction. I'm going to say some things about the Catholic church today that may be hard for some of you to hear. But I'm not talking about the Catholic people. Okay, there's a difference between those who are part of the church that are Catholic. Parishioners that go to the church and there's a very clear distinction between that and the institution of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Okay. So let's be clear about what I'm talking about today. I'm not bashing on are our friends and neighbors who belong to the Catholic Church. Okay, some of them I believe our followers of Jesus Christ, so I'm not bashing on them. But the institution of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, began in 1590 began, a. Of corruption. Within the church. We call it. The dark ages for a reason, it became a time of such deep corruption in the church where the church had a vice-like grip on the world at that time. The church specifically the the pope began to rule the world. And when I say that, I know, don't say that lightly. I mean, Kings did whatever the pope said, That's The Power of the Pope wielded, over the world during that. In fact, if one country wasn't paying enough tribute to, to Rome to the to the holy see, he would order another kingdom to invade them and overtake them so that he could get his I don't have time to go into all the history. Okay. I just suffice it to say I spent Literally hundreds of hours studying the history and reading historical documents by the Catholic Church, their own historians admit to this time of great corruption. Understand it during this period, when the pope became a thing, right? That the papacy was established. Now, they will claim there's 265, and the 266th pope now with the current pope that they claim, has been successive all the way going back to Peter, but there was no such thing as the papacy until the 680. Okay, that was not something that was known to the people of there's no document to record of it within any church documents. None of the early church fathers wrote about it that the that the bishop of Rome was somehow elevated over all other Bishops. That was not a thing. Okay. This was something established in the, in the time called the Dark Ages where this a bishop of Rome began. Consolidate all the power to one spot as the, the headquarters of the government of Rome had become established in its, what's now, in the bowl, but was Constantinople with Constantine, made his government. It put enough separation. So that the church great gain so much power in the West, in the city of Rome that eventually they over a clipped, the Grumman government and began to command the world. Right? And that's part of History. That's not that isn't debated by any Scholars that the pope was de facto, the ruler of the world. The problem was. Hopes were horrible. The truth of it is the post-war horrible. They enforced laws that they themselves didn't keep, they were corrupt. So corrupted, the opulence was unbelievable. Many of them. We're not even followers of Jesus. They bought the papacy so that they could just through by buying off, the Pope that was about to die. They were made a cardinal and then they paid everyone off to get the papacy that happened more than once. Sometimes it was the pope. Would one of his sons. Yes, the post were often had five or six Mistresses and does some of the kids even though it was forbidden for any priest to marry, they help. They had many Mistresses and I could just go down to the one Pope after another, how evil they were. They slaughtered millions of people and the name of power, and it was a bad scene. Now, again, not talking about the people that were that were just the people, The Catholic Church. They were many of them trying to do, what was right, trying to serve God, but the church was telling them all sorts of horrible things, telling them that they had to buy their way out of purgatory, that made the church by selling indulgences. The church was had become so corrupt, and They have pushed celibacy so hard, you know, at the beginning of the Catholic Church. They didn't force priest to not be married. It was okay. If you got married, they would encourage them once, they were married and they got some kids, then to live a celibate while still in their marriage, but then it became to push because what they realized it is and one of the Pope's actually came out and said it. He said, you know, we've got to stop them from marrying because they are, they are requesting their wealth to their children. Instead of the church, right? So the edict came down, priests are no longer to marry. But it didn't stop them from having sexual relations. In Rome at the height of the Dark Ages. It is said there was a prostitute one prostitute for every three men in the city. That's how I know was it was a city of 90,000 people? That's how many prostitutes there were. And some say well that's just the official count of those who are registered prostitutes. I didn't count all the illicit ones. It was so rampant within the priesthood that they would be visiting prostitutes. That when some of them would go someplace to the one of the Cardinals would go someplace to visit. They would brag about how when they left their they left a brothel from one end of the city to the other. That's how corrupt it was and I could just again I could go on and on and not going to what I want you to understand in this. Is that the people that were probably didn't know any of this was going on, right? This was all at the upper levels. They didn't know what took place in the Cardinal. The College of cardinals. They couldn't go in and listen to the conversations that we're going on. They weren't even allowed to know what the Bible said. Did they bring the Bible with chain to the pulpit? They did not let the people read it because they said only the magisterium can interpret it for you. Only. Those who are really trained in the Deep things of God. This is what Jesus warned his disciples about concerning this Parable that we just read. He began to say to his disciples. First of all, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy for. There is nothing covered that will be not will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known there for whatever you've spoken in. The dark will be heard in the light. And what have you spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed in the housetops? This idea of this mystery of religion. Shrouded in mystery that you can't understand. You can't know it. Jesus called that out. You're the beerus. He's, we're even doing that back in his time. You can't really understand that you need us to interpret it for you. You can't. You don't need to read the scriptures. We will read it and we will interpret what it really says for you. And Jesus came along and said no guess what, what it says. That's what it means, Jesus interpreted the Bible. Literally. He just said, oh wait, this is what the Bible said and that's what it means. And the Pharisees hated him for that, you know, he was he was letting everyone in on their their scam that there is no mystery that you need to be initiated into understand that God gave his worst so that you could know him. And you could know him personally. And they were letting he was letting the cat out of the bag and they didn't like it. You could listen. It's the ultimate apocracy to claim to have the truth and keep people in darkness and under your thumb. And over and over, in the book, we've already seen, he will he would declare, I hate the Deeds of the Nicolaitans Nicolaitans. In the Greek means lording over the laity. That is those who say? Well, I've got something special. You couldn't possibly understand. So you need to come to me for all truth. This is Colt stuff. I didn't tell Colton. I have some ultimate truth that you don't have it. You need to come to me for that truth. That's what was happening here as well. And that was what was happening in the Middle Ages. Were the dark ages of the church. Where did it come from? How did this happen? How did this corruption happen? And man, we are really. Wow. Okay. So we have to go back to Genesis chapter 390, that makes end. You're like, really, we got to go to back to the beginning. Yes, we do. Because God's word is one Story from beginning to end Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. We call it. The protoevangelium that verse, it's the first mention of the Gospel in the Bible. That's the first where Jesus told Eve because you have been tempted and you have sinned and he tells the strip it because you caused this. I am going to put enmity between the woman and you and between the woman's seed and your seed. Now, understand. I don't think I need to have a biology class but you all understand women don't have seed, right? Okay. We're just going to leave it that that that's just a fact of life, right? Okay, so, what's it mean? Well, this is the first mention of the Virgin birth, right? That there would be one who comes from a woman but doesn't actually come from her, right? And what does he say about this seed capital s that will come from this woman. One who comes from the woman will crush the Serpent's head. In other words, this prophecy that God gives in that first is that I'm going to send one. Through a woman that actually can destroy you and will destroy you talking to Satan in this, right? That will crush her head. Now, you will bruise his heel talking about the fact that Jesus impacted suffer But ultimately, he will be Victorious. Now, we know that is the first amendment of The Gospel message to Christ would come virgin birth through Mary miraculously and he would have victory over death, hell and sin. Those are the domain that Satan operated in from that moment until Christ death and Resurrection, but Satan heard that too. Marion and Adam Lee heard it. They believed it back to believe it so much. You can see from the text in the Hebrew that they thought it was going to happen right away. They named their their kids with this idea that okay, just this next. You know, she thought the sun. She's having, he's going to be the one. You can be the one that crushes, the enemy and gets us back in God's relationship with God. So they can go back into the, to the Garden. But when she realizes that doesn't happen, you can see successively is she kind of realizes? That's not what's going to happen. That God had a much bigger picture than just redeeming Adam and Eve, it was to redeem the world. Right? And so Satan heard that promise as well. And every since then he has been trying to corrupt that coming Messiah, through the Virgin birth, even tried to corrupt that so that people will believe a false counterfeit. And instead of the true Messiah, the true savior of mankind for the sake of time, I go to this very quickly, but here's just one example. I'll give many. But here's just one example, you would think by looking at this, at this picture of Mary and baby Jesus, but this in fact, a picture of Osiris or Isis and her baby Horace or a psychiatrist because as the legend goes Osiris, was her husband who died and was reincarnated and came to life as his God baby for us, right? That's one of the many mythological Legends around these but these didn't just start their. You have to go all the way back into Babylonian history. And I don't, I don't have the time to really delve deep into it today, but understand at the Tower of Babel. Satan inspired Nimrod to build this Tower to God, so that they could do away with the god of Israel, the god of the true God, and, and worship, man. And, and his own thing, which ultimately would bring glory to Satan and not God. And, you know, the story, God, God put an end to that, but from that moment, the religion of Babylon kicked off and that has that religion, Pagan religion, spread and took many different forms. The Bible speaks about it and and the primary duties being Ishtar and tammuz and ball and Asher. Roth. In fact, there's many different names for them in Egypt. It was Osiris and Horus in India. It is seeing his Soiree in China and Japan. They have Ming, Shing, Boo and her child in Greece. It was Irene and plutus in Rome. It was for tuna and Jupiter or Venus and Adonis depending on where in Rome you were in Scandinavia, frigga and Baldur and of course in Babylon, it was Ishtar and tan mousse and go back and could do all the study. I don't have time to go into it. But basically starting with Nimrod and a very possibly a woman named simmer. Amycel do that. It history is kind of murky because you don't hit a thousand of years ago, but just looking at all the different sources they had, this son named tammuz who the Bible comes to, to condemn the word, right? So there was a sort of Corruption of what was to come the prophecy that got that God gave that Satan knew was going to happen. He began to create a counterfeit, starting with Ash, trough or Ishtar and tammuz or ball. We see that through the Bible and dispense spread throughout the world and taking different forms different mythology, these different names. But it's all the same basic premise. There's a mother who has a child somehow miraculously either through Reincarnation of her husband, who then is this, God man, who she grows up to rule with, that's basically the premise of every single one of these mythologies or Legends concerning this, this Unholy Trinity of mother and reincarnated husband to have a pass as a God man, son. You see how Satan? Suddenly try to corrupt the truth about what would happen that day? When truly the God, man would come to crush his head. He keep kept spitting out in every culture, some sort of counterfeit. Now, they're all just wild weird story. So they don't correspond exactly to the truth of the Gospel in any way, but you can see the corruption mother-child the Unholy Trinity. The Bible talks about Ezekiel chapter 7 verse 18. God condemns. This is affecting the prophet AJ the children gather wood in the father's Kindle the fire and the women need do to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven and they poured out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite me. Now the Queen of Heaven that was a straw for known as Ishtar depending on what part of the Middle East you were in. And they would pour out these drink offerings to Ishtar or ask her off and they would bake cakes for. And God says, they're worshiping a false god and they hadn't stopped worshipping, God. They just added this in. They just added this end and they're going to tell him why later on. They explain why they're doing this, in fact, this is a god strike command of them. Don't do that. And this is what they say, ask for the message that you spoken to us. In the name of the Lord. We're not going to listen to you. But rather we will certainly carry out every word that precedes from our mouth by burning sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her. Just as we ourselves are forefathers are Kings. And our Prince is dead in the cities of Judah. And in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no Misfortune, but since we stopped burning sacrifice at the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to are, we have lacked everything and have met are in By The Sword. And by famine So basically, when God said, I don't want you to do this anymore. They said we don't care, why? Because man is Brett, brought us Good Fortune. It's All About the Benjamins, right? Yeah, we're going to do it because he brought us money. Right? And God said, I don't want you to do that. Talks about them baking baking cakes, right? Baking cakes. And these cakes were these little buns that they would bake. They would put a t in them for taboos. They would offer them up to Ashton Roth prior to the what they called, the Feast of tammuz, which was a misnomer because what it meant was you were in mourning for tammuz because the story goes that he died, a horrible death, but he was resurrected 40 Days Later. And was this young because he was gone. He came back to life. And that, there's many different variations of the story. But basically, they would have 40 days of mourning for Camel Blues, right? That they would go to prior to the the Feast of Ishtar 40 days. Right up before they start, they would be in mourning and they would fast during the day, they would eat very meager meals and for 40 days, they would lament for tammuz and they would write up till Ishtar the celebration of Ishtar where they would make these little cakes. And they would put a little tea on them for taboos and offer them before. Today, we know those that hot cross buns, right? They we have taken him and we've talked said, no, that's not the sign of tammuz that is representing the cross and we don't lament for tammuz for those 40 days. We offer up our Linton. Sacrifice that is week. Observe Lent. As a way to reflect on our own lives and what Christ has done for us when he died and rose from the dead on Ishtar Easter. Our religion. It got corrupted combined with all of these Pagan religion, but I want you to understand that doesn't bother me that it doesn't bother me at all. Jeremiah. If you're in this passage of it, he goes on to say and don't, I don't want you to stop bringing trees in to your house and setting them up inside your house and decorating them with gold and silver in honor of tammuz. And yet, I have a Christmas tree. Be had one right here, this Christmas, right? Why? Because God is a god of redemption. And he can redeem anything in all nobody when they eat a hot cross bun during Easter time, or when they're on serving lent, or when they're going to the to Easter on Sunday. Are they thinking about Ishtar or tammuz? When we put up a Christmas tree? We're not celebrating the birth of tammuz or not celebrating the the Festival of saturnalia know, we're thinking about Jesus. Will you get represents for us the new life in Christ that we have, and what he did for us at Calvary and because he can redeem sinful people who were enemies with God, and he can do that for us. Then he can do that for festivals and observances, and emblems. He can redeem all of those. And so, if you, if you are worshipping taboos, when are eating a hot cross bun or you're putting up a tree, stop it. Okay, whatever wise. Be thankful that the Lord has the ability to redeem everything. Even what the enemy means for corruption and Ford destruction. God turns for good because how many people have come to Christ during the Christmas season? Or come to Christ during the the Easter observances, because we lift up the name of Jesus during those things. But we have to understand that. These were things that came into the church and corrupted it and unfortunate that corruption has taken hold and is still in place in the Catholic church as a organization. And in fact, it plays itself out even today in their worship of Mary. Now, if you talk to a Catholic person, they will say we don't worship Mary, we venerate her, but the truth is in practice. The majority of Catholic people find themselves worshipping her because that is the official stance of the church. I'll read from one of their own publication Soul magazine. And I quote, Mary is so perfectly United with the holy spirit that he acts only through her. His spouse all our life. Every thought word and deed is in her hands. At every moment. She herself must instruct guide and transform each one of us into herself, so that not we, but she lives in us as Jesus lived in her and the father in The Sun, you get to the church. The Roman Church has ascribed to Mary things that can only be ascribed to God, right? They have elevated her to the point of godhood and I don't believe that I believe there's a lot of Catholics. Don't believe that they know, they think they worship Jesus. But unfortunately, this is the practice of the church. You go to any Shrine of Mary and you'll see what I'm talking about. There is worship going on and they say we don't worship Mary but remember the god condemn, the people for pouring out drink offering to the Queen of Heaven, by the way, which is one of the name of the Catholic church has bestowed on Mary. Queen of Heaven. Why? Because they wanted to get rich. Well, guess what? The worship was married. For the Catholic. Church is a billion dollar industry not million billion dollar industry. They have made so much money off the worship of Mary. It's ridiculous. It is a billion dollar industry and they have ascribed to her things and only God can do from their own booklet. The rosary your key to Heaven. They write the rosary as a means of Salvation because a true child of Mary is never lost. And one who says the rosary daily is truly married, child. Mary is our all-powerful Advocate, and she can obtain from the Hartford Divine, son. Whatever is good for her children. No one is beyond Redemption. If he, but turns to Mary Immaculate. I mean, this is, this is the official stance of the church. Is that if you turn to Mary. Christ lives in her and she will live in, you know, what's the Bible say about that? Jesus said, if you open to me, I will come in and I will live with you. I will make my home with you, right? This is not, this is not biblical in, this is not how it works. But they say, you need to go to marry who then will go to Jesus on your behalf. She's the only one that can really gain your forgiveness. They call for the mediatrix Edwards Jesus, as the mediator between, man and God, but she's the mediator between you and Jesus.

Beware of the leaven because the Catholic church, again, as an institution starting back with John Paul II, who in many ways with I think a good man, but he ushered in an era of ecumenicalism within the Catholic church. And at one point he had a meeting, he had a huge Gathering of people. He had Muslims. He had wiccans the other last Rhian Hindus, altogether, worshipping together. How are they worshiping together? Well, in that in the documents from that meeting. It was very simple. We all are coming together Under The Heading of the mother. Write the mother who loves us all for the Catholic. That's mother Mary for the, for the wiccans. That's Mother Earth for the Muslims. Not to marry the venerated one. They can all join together under this worship. This false worship of Mary and what she has done rather than God be, this is the corruption has taken place and it's still there were many Christian Protestant churches represented in that group. Also, who said, well, we're at worship Mary, but we venerate her as one, whose blessed above all women. She she's blessed above all women because she was the one chosen to Bear Jesus, but she needed a savior, just like we do. In fact, she Glory Luke chapter 1, she glory in the fact that her savior was coming, right? That that she was chosen to Bear the Savior person.