Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of understanding the 16 descriptions of Jesus as presented in Revelation 2-3, which are tailored to address the unique challenges faced by the seven churches. Each description reveals aspects of Jesus' heart and ministry, encouraging believers to call upon Him for strength and guidance in overcoming spiritual lethargy and immorality. Bickle stresses the importance of engaging with these truths through study, prayer, and application in daily life, as they are essential for preparation in the end times. He highlights that these revelations are not just historical but are meant for the church today, especially as it faces increasing challenges. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a deeper relationship with Jesus, who holds the keys to overcoming the trials of this world.

Well, let's pray. Let's ask the Lord's blessing upon the hearing of the word. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus as we open our heart before you. We ask you to receive from your heart, even now by the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Well, for those that are visiting us, we are on the 10th part of a 12-part series as we're studying the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation, Revelation 2 and 3. We've looked at the seven churches, the unique challenges that Jesus gave each one of the seven churches and the unique promises. And the challenges and the promises, they have a correlation, but tonight we're gonna look at 16 descriptions that Jesus gave of his own heart and ministry. Now, these 16 descriptions were meant to be, were strategic, obviously. Each one of the descriptions are related to a specific challenge, to overcome a specific challenge of compromise and to obtain an eternal promise. So what Jesus is saying is that if you wanna overcome these challenges, you wanna obtain these promises, you need to experience my heart and my ministry in these specific ways. And so he stands before us like a many-faceted diamond, and he says, I've given you the invitation to call forth my heart and my ministry to you in a specific way as you seek to overcome the challenges and receive the promises. These 16 descriptions of Jesus, of his own heart and his own ministry are, I think of it as like a diamond of the greatest value. I mean, here's Jesus presenting Jesus to the end time church. Now he's obviously presenting it to the church in the first century, 2000 years ago, and it's meant to be understand by the church through history but there's no question that the challenges given the seven churches and the promises given those seven churches were meant in a very specific way for the church and the generation the Lord returns, the ones that would experience the revival and the crisis described in the book of Revelation. The great revival and the great crisis that the book of Revelation described that will unfold in the final years before the second coming of Christ, it will take a unique preparation. And Jesus is saying, the challenges will be great but the rewards will be far greater. You must experience my heart in these 16 specific ways. And you must call forth my hand, my ministry, my involvement in your life in these ways. So I want my heart to experience these things from his heart but I want his hand to be released. I need to experience these dimensions of his ministry to us. And so I offer this handout to you. Of course, it's just an introduction of an introduction. There's far more obviously to these dimensions, these facets of Jesus's personality and ministry, far more than we can put on a handout. But I wanna challenge you to take these 16 facets of Jesus's heart and to meditate, to go deep in them, to go deep and to understand they are your inheritance, to understand and experience these at the heart level and to call forth this revelation in your personal life, to call it forth in your life circumstances. I don't wanna stand before the Lord one day and say, Lord, I stumbled, I tripped, I fell, I didn't know what to do. And then the Lord will say, I gave you 16 specific facets of my heart, things that I would do with my hand involved in your ministry if you would have called on me. I was there beckoning you. I longed to show myself to you in these ways. That's why I revealed them to you in my word. Paragraph A, Revelation one to three, it's more than chapter two and three, you wanna put chapter one in there as well, is a unique and significant passage because Jesus gives more insight about his heart than any other passage of scripture in terms of revealing specific things about his personality, I mean, and just saying it direct. There's no place in scripture where he gives more than Revelation one, two, and three. These, this revelation will prepare us for the glory and the crisis in the end times. This is our inheritance to enter into this. Now, how are we gonna do it? Number one, we're gonna study these truths. More than hearing a teaching one time, we're gonna study them. I wanna challenge you, we got a lot of eager people in this room for the Lord, zealous. I wanna challenge you to memorize these 16 truths. I mean, they're not, it's not hard, but even if it was hard, it'd certainly be worth it. We're talking about God revealing God. Jesus preaching Jesus. Doesn't get any better than that. Then pray over them, don't just study them, pray. Fasting and prayer go before the Lord because fasting and prayer tenderizes our spirit to receive more faster. Fasting doesn't earn us anything, but it positions us to receive more faster. It tenderizes us. Then, it's not enough to pray, study it. Then we gotta pray over it and ask for revelation. Then we need to use it, we need to employ it. Meaning, when the enemy comes in like a flood, we don't just hold our breath and grit our teeth. We speak the word of God to the enemy. We speak it to God and to the enemy. We call on these truths as we resist the work of the enemy and we call on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You put those things together. You study them, you pray and ask for increase, and you war with these truths. You take the sword of the spirit, you war with these truths. Don't just yield to the enemy's onslaught. Speak the word back like Jesus did when the enemy came against him. Paragraph B, the 16 facets of his personality, of his heart, and of what he promises to reveal to us in his ministry, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Let's read these, just kind of get a quick overview. Now, there's actually 17 mentioned, but Jesus holding the seven stars in his hand is mentioned twice. That's the one that gets a particular point of emphasis. And of course, the seven stars speak of his, they're seven apostolic leaders, the primary apostolic leader in each of those seven churches. The stars were the apostolic leader of that church. And of course, it's clear that Jesus isn't only committed to the senior leader of a church over a region, but if he's saying that what I'll do to that leader, I'll do to all my people, I'll visit them. I will hold them in my hand. I will hold those people dear. I will hold their heart in my hand, and I will be near to them. That's what it means for Jesus to hold the stars. He's talking about, those are people. He will hold their heart in his hand as they are confronting the challenges and seeking to obtain the promises. And that's the one facet of his personality. He mentioned twice in these seven letters, I will hold you in my hand. I'll hold the heart of these people. I'll hold their life. I love that. You've heard the phrase that we don't know the future, but we know the one who holds the future. And the one that holds the future is actually holding our heart in his hand. He's holding us, but he invites us to call him as the one who holds his people, even as a star. He holds us to make us bright like the stars, to make us fiery like a star. Obviously a star, it's not just bright, it's filled with fire. And he says, I'll hold you for the purpose of making you bright like a star, but it's not an automatic thing. Call me into your experience according to this revealed desire of my heart in the way that I wanna relate to you. To the church at Ephesus, and we're just gonna read all 16 of these. Yay, 17, because the holding of the stars is mentioned twice. To the church of Ephesus, Jesus says, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand. And he's the one who walks in the midst of the candlesticks or the church. I walk in your midst, he says. Verse eight, to the church at Smyrna. Right, these things says the first one. Next, the revelation, he says, he's the last one. Those are two different revelations. He's the one who was dead, but came to life. Verse 12, to the church at Pergamos, here's who I am. I'm the one who has the sharp two-edged sword in my hand. Well, we know it's in his mouth actually. To the church at Thyatira, right, these things, says the son of God, he reveals his deity. He reveals himself as the one with eyes like fire. He reveals himself as one with feet like fine brass or bronze. To the church at Sardis, he says, he has the seven spirits. He says that the diverse ministry of the Holy Spirit is under my authority, I'll give it to you if you ask me for it. And he goes again and he mentions that he's the one that holds the seven stars. He mentions this again, it's interesting that the church at Sardis and the church at Ephesus both had the similar problem of losing their spiritual vitality, their love for the Lord. And the two churches that were diminished in their love for Jesus, those are the two that he holds their heart and he says, my commitment is to make you burn bright like a star again if you ask me to be that to you. I am that, but I will only be to you. Well, I wouldn't say only, but I'd say slightly different because the Lord does things for us that we don't ask him. But the Lord is saying, I will be to you according to your faith. That the promises of God in the word, that he says, I will give more of myself to you in these particular ways, according to your faith, which means according to the reach of your heart to me in confidence. Because faith means you're confident, a sustained reach of your heart to his heart. Verse seven, to the church at Philadelphia, he says, I am the one who is holy. I'm the one who's true. And I'm the one that has the key of David. To the church at the Laodiceans, he's the amen. He's the faithful and true witness, and he's the beginning of the creation of God. 16 different facets of Jesus's heart. And he says to us, I will give you more revelation and experience according to your faith, according to the reach of your heart to my heart. If you want more, I will give you more. But the reach of faith is a sustained, focused, confident reach. It's not a casual reach, it's not a casual glance. It's a sustained reach of the heart that has focus and it has confidence. Now we don't have faith just automatically, we faith grows. Our confidence grows with focus and by sustaining it, by staying with it. I want faith. I wanna reach in my heart with a sustained focus and confidence in all 16 of these facets of Jesus's heart. And I want him to, not just to reveal these to my heart, I want him to release these realities in my circumstances, in my life. And that's what you want as well. Let's go to Roman number two. Let's look at the first one. Now we're gonna just look at these real brief, obviously. A teaching is like a menu. It's really what a teaching is. It's important that you understand that. Because a teaching, what I'm really doing tonight is I'm telling you what's on the menu. Of course, a little bit of God's menu. God's got a big menu. And I'm only reading the menu to you to stir your appetite up. You don't really feed at a service, at a teaching service. People say, oh, I went to that meeting, I really, my spirit was really fed. It's not technically right. I guess it could be right a little bit, but it's not technically right. What they mean is I was stirred up. You get fed when you take it away personally and you chew on it many times. You can't get fed hearing it. You get inspired, you get stirred up, but you can't really get fed until you turn, until it becomes a part of the language of your own prayer life with God. You're not really fed till these truths are in your dialogue with God, in your private life. So I'm giving you a menu tonight. Every teaching is a menu of sorts. My goal is to stir up your appetite. So you say, oh, ooh, ah, juicy, delicious. Ah, ooh, I can't wait. Hurry up and get done with this teaching so I can go away and eat and savor and salivate and just sit before God on this. And of course it takes a lifetime to feed on this. And so the real intention of a meeting like this really isn't to feed you in the most technical sense. It's to advertise truth to stir you up so you will feed yourself later. So that's what we're doing. I'm giving you 16. I mean, this is main dish, best of the menu. Really, you'll feed your spirit on this for many, many, many years. To the church at Ephesus, Jesus reveals himself as the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand. He's the one who walks in the midst of the golden lampstands. He says, I have this against you. Now, the reason I'm gonna give you a little bit more in this passage, because the revelation of his heart is specifically in context to the challenge that they must overcome and the promise that he puts before them to obtain. So I wanna put the challenge and the promise in context with the revelation of his heart. He goes, I hold the seven stars, which we know the seven stars are people. They're leaders. It's not confined to leaders, but he's pointing at the senior leader. And of course, what is true of that leader in God's heart is true of all the people as well in the church there at Ephesus. He says, I hold you in my right hand. I walk among you. Verse four, I have this against you. You've left your first love. Again, this is the same problem that the church at Sardis had. They had a name. They were alive, but they were dead, which is the same thing as leaving their spiritual vitality in their heart with God. And Jesus reveals himself the same way to the two churches that had the same problem or a similar problem. Actually, Sardis was in worse shape than Ephesus. They had actually, they were spiritually dead. They were lethargic, the vast majority. At least these guys in Ephesus were still hard workers, but they'd left the vibrant love connection with Jesus. They were more servants than they were worshipers of God. And much of the church is like that. Better a servant and a worker than a couch potato. Much of the church in the Western world, they're spiritual couch potatoes. If you get them to work, if you can convert them to become workers, it's a great victory. But once we convert them to become workers, then we want to convert the workers to become lovers because lovers were always outwork workers, always. But there's a progression. First, let's get them off the couch and let's get them into the active service. Then once they're in active service, let's get them into heart connect with God and their service will be far more dynamic and far more sustained. Jesus said in verse five, I'm gonna remove your lampstand if you don't repent. The anointing upon the church of Ephesus as a regional apostolic center that was bringing light to the whole region. That's what a lampstand church is. It's a ministry that God raises up that inspires and models what's in God's heart for many other ministries to follow. There's a lot of lampstand ministries in the earth. It's a small percent, but it's still thousands and thousands. There are millions of ministries in the earth, of course. Then he says in verse seven, to him who overcomes, I'll give you to eat of the tree of life which is the midst of the paradise of God. It's interesting, Jesus is saying, I'm gonna walk in your midst. I'm walking in your midst right now. And if you will connect with me, you'll walk in the midst of my garden even like Adam did in the age to come. Getting ahead of myself here. But there's a parallel between the two. Let's focus on the definitions. The seven stars, paragraph eight. He holds the seven stars. And holding them, he says, I'm gonna hold your heart. Do you pray this verse for your life? Do you, when you feel barren, you feel your love has gone cold, you feel lonely, forgotten, the Lord isn't, his eye of favor is not on you. I wanna challenge you to say, Jesus, you are the one who holds the stars. You are the one that holds your people to make them bright again. Here I am, be to me. The Jesus who holds the seven stars. Of course, in your case, you want him to hold you, your heart, your life. To anoint you, to direct you, to be involved with you. To set you, to bright in your spirit. Now it says in Revelation one that the stars are the messengers. And it says angels, but the Greek word's the word messenger. And in the New Testament, that exact word can be translated as a human messenger or an angelic messenger. And the translators have to decide because throughout the New Testament, it's a human messenger as well. And it's clearly a human messenger that Jesus is talking to. He's gonna give this message to that person and they're gonna then speak it to the congregation. And the Lord's telling that person, that apostolic leader, because probably the overall condition in the church is reflective of some of the spiritual condition of that apostolic leader. That leader gets connected, probably the implication or many under their ministry and influence will get connected to the Lord in a new way as well. Paragraph B, David had much revelation of God's right hand. I mean, Jesus is saying, hey, I'm holding you in my right hand. Throughout the book of Psalms, David talks, makes personal confession about the right hand of God in his own life. And I tell you, nobody had favor in the Old Testament more than David did. And the right hand is the right hand of favor. And what the Lord is saying, I will hold you in the hand of favor. I'll hold your heart. I will renew you. I will protect you. I will deliver you. But I want you to call on me to do this. And when the enemy tells you opposite, I want you to speak the truth and renounce the lies of the enemy when he comes to your heart and says, it's lost, it's over, it's too late, you've gone too far. You're gonna say, it is written, he is the one who holds his people like a star in his right hand. I am not finished, it's not too late. Jesus, reveal yourself to me and manifest your hand upon me in this way. Paragraph C, Jesus desires to make his servants shine. Look what it says in Daniel. Daniel saw it, that the wise would shine like brightness. You know, when the Lord gives you those moments, we all have those moments when repentance, we have a tenderness on our heart and repentance seems so wise and then the next day, you know, I mean, we have this tenderness and the next day or the next week, we don't have the same tenderness. That's like a flash of brightness that comes on our spirit from the Lord. Those moments where righteousness and abandonment seems so wise and then you're in a different mood the next day or the next week or month, the Lord's saying, that's me holding you like a star in my hand. Those are the flashes of my brightness. I am making you a star, but you do have to follow through. You have to go follow through with it. I am doing what I said I would do to you, but you do have to respond in more than just the moment of tenderness. You know, Jesus knew that we were created for love. He knew we were created to burn bright. Beloved, when we don't burn bright, our spirit doesn't work right. It really doesn't. And the church is wounded by trying to find a way in the grace of God to live less than wholehearted and to feel good about it. We were created to burn bright, to burn, I mean, radical. I mean, abandoned in our pursuit of the Lord and our seeking of Him. And it's that brightness that Jesus is committed to helping us enter into. Top of page two. Now, Jesus said, I'll walk in the midst of the candlesticks. Now, when Jesus walks in the midst of the candlesticks, this is clearly a reference to God and Adam walking in the midst of the Garden of Eden in the days of old. When He says, I'll walk in the midst, He's saying, I'll be your friend. I'll walk with you like I walked with Adam, Enoch, Abraham, David, Noah. Just get a concordance out and read the passages where God walked with people. That's what He's saying to the church at Ephesus. I will be the one who is in your midst. I'm not far away. I haven't turned my gaze away. I haven't left you. I'm actually in your midst. I'm willing to release my power. I'm willing to walk alongside you. I am there to fellowship with you, not just to commune with your heart. More than that, the Lord's saying, I haven't given you this ministry and then left you to your own. I'll walk with you in it. I know many. I felt it a few times myself over the years. But I know many men and women in ministry, whether they're over 10 or whether they're over 10,000, it doesn't matter the size. It doesn't matter the focus of the ministry. They have a ministry assignment from the Lord. And when they get into it, they're kind of excited on the front end. And then they get in it and they get overwhelmed with problems, resistance, things aren't going right. And they go, Lord, and they feel like the Lord's turned his face away or he's not helping. He says, I'll walk with you in it. It's very normal for human beings to feel adequate about the assignment the Lord has given them. He says, but I'll walk with you. You don't have to feel inadequate. You are inadequate in yourself, but I will walk with you in it. I remember when the Lord said, it was time to start IHOP, it was nine years ago. I thought, Lord, 24 seven a day, until I meet you. I mean, this could go on a long time. I mean, this is, wow. It's one thing do it for a year, do it for 10 years, but this is like, this could go on decades. I said, huh? And one of the verses the Lord stirred my heart with, I'll walk with you, I'll help you. I'll help you, I'll face the enemies. I'll give direction, I'll give supply, I'll give resource, I'll give divine ideas. I'll give unity where there's division. I will walk with you. You won't be just doing it, looking up occasionally, saying, Lord, how am I doing? I will actually walk with you, but I want you to call me into the task with you. So that's what the church at Ephesus, he was inviting them. Call me into the task and I'll walk with you in it. Now look what he says in Deuteronomy 23. The Lord walks in the midst of your camp. Now Jesus is, I have no doubt, is quoting this promise. Well, Jesus said it himself in Deuteronomy 23. He was quoting himself when he spoke to Moses. The Lord walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you. That's why he's in the midst, to deliver you from the external enemies and the internal enemies, because the internal enemies of the church of Ephesus was their lethargic relationship with the Lord, their passivity. Therefore, your camp should be holy, that the Lord may see no unclean thing, because if the Lord sees that you settle down and decide to live in disagreement with him, he says, I will turn away from you. Now he's not talking about somebody in the midst of a struggle. He's saying, he's talking to ministries that just decide to agree and to camp out and compromise. He says, know this, that I'm walking in your midst, I will turn away from you. There is a time I'll do that if you won't break your agreement with the darkness. Paragraph E, I mentioned the idea of feeling inadequate or even feeling weak before the area we're repenting of. Lord, I want my first love to be revived. I feel weak. The Lord says, let me hold your hand and let me walk with you. Okay, good. Well, call me into this experience in your life, not once, day by day by day by day. If you're struggling with the challenge of what the church in Ephesus, call on that revelation of Jesus in that ministry. Ask him to hold you and to walk among you. And I don't mean once in a year, do it as your confession throughout the day and as your prayer focus. Let's go to the next one. Revelation, I mean, Roman numeral three. Jesus is the source and he's the assurance of our blessing. To the church at Smyrna. Now, this was a church that was being persecuted. Jesus said, these things says the first one and the last one. He gives three descriptions. And the one who was dead and came to life. Now he tells them, don't be afraid of the things that you're about to suffer. He says, you are going to suffer them. He says, you will be thrown in prison. You read the whole passage. And some of you will die. I'm not promising you that it won't be hard in circumstances. But I promise you, I will touch your heart and I will return everything to you that you lost, including your life. I promise you I will. I promise you I'll return everything to you. He says, don't fear any of the things that you're about to suffer. Now in our context, we don't have people suffering by going to prison for righteousness at this point in time. I think it's gonna happen before the Lord returns or suffering martyrdom, but we have difficulties. We have a rejection because of a stand for righteousness or lifestyle. I mean, even among the IHOP world, there's 10 or 15 different levels of commitment to the Lord. And there are those that are far more pressing into God than others. And there's even tensions in the relationship as to what it means to press into God. And there's relationships that are strained because of it. And so even in your walk with God, instead of the word suffer, think of martyrdom. At this point in time, let's think of it as the difficulty and the resistance and the pressure you get from people because you have made a definitive stand to go wholehearted for God. And then you can apply this passage to you. He says, paragraph eight, Jesus reveals himself as the source and the assurance of all blessing. He's emphasizing his tender care over them. Paragraph B, when he says, I'm the first, he goes, I am the uncreated God. You know, Jesus was never created. He's like the Father and the Spirit, forever in the past, uncreated. He goes, he's telling the church, the believers at Smyrna, he's saying, I gave you the blessing that you might lose momentarily. I gave you the gold. I gave you your life. I gave you a good name. I gave you honor. I gave you comfort. I am the first. I have all power. I'm the creator. I can give those things to you. And if they're taken from you temporarily, understand I have the last word and I can give them back to you a hundredfold. I am the first. I am the source. And I am the supply of everything you have, body, soul, and spirit. I can give your life back to you, not a hundredfold, a millionfold for eternally with a resurrected body filled with glory. He says, when they threaten to take something from you, call on me as your source, the supply. Because the saints at Smyrna really did lose business opportunities because of their convictions. Beloved, you really will lose money sometimes because you obey God. I mean, even in the context of the house of faith, believers will even get disturbed at you. You will lose things. You will lose some of your friends and your honor. Lord says, I am the first. I am the source. Call on me. Let me reveal this to you. This is one of the great revelations that King David had. He had a revelation of God as his source. That's what this verse means. And David, when he was in trouble more times than not, his heart was steady a few times. He fell into discouragement, but his heart was steady because he had a revelation of God as the first, as the source. And he knew whatever Saul took from him in his early days or Absalom in his later days, or anyone else, he knew God could give it back a hundredfold. So his heart was steady most of the time. Then Jesus said, I'm the last. Not only am I the source and the supply, and I give it to you again, I have the last word. Your enemy doesn't have the last word. Your resistor, even a believer, they don't have the last word. I do, says the Lord. And not only do I have the last word, I am the goal and the reason for why I gave it to you was for my purpose. If it's mine, I'm the last. I'm the reason. I'm the end result of why I gave you the money. I gave you the money so you would know me, love me, and serve me. So remember, if I give it to you and it gets temporarily taken, I can give it to you a hundredfold, and I will, not necessarily in this life, but I'll give it to you far more in forever, sometimes in this life. Talking about circumstances here. He says, but know that I'm the reason for the blessing I gave you. Now, many believers, they are focused on Jesus being the first, but they're not focused on Him being the last, the final reason and the purpose for why they have an anointed ministry, why they have an increase. Now, they say, everyone says it's for Jesus, but Jesus would say, why is it that you've lost connection with me when I'm the reason, I'm the last, I'm the ultimate cause and purpose for what I've given you, and I am the final word. Now, you can be assured that whatever promise God has ordained, He will be true to you. Whatever supply He's given you, whatever you lose because of righteousness, beloved, it will return a hundredfold, many times in this life, and many more times in the life to come, the age to come, but it will return. Jesus is the only one who sees the end of the story. I love the song that Misty sang through the words that this is not the end of the story. You know, I see the end of the story. Something bigger's going on. Something bigger's going on. Jesus is saying, I have the last word on this subject of your life and your life plan. Then He goes on to say the next thing in paragraph D. Jesus reveals Himself as the one that was dead and came to life. Now, this is really important because as the first one and the last one, He's revealing His deity because you have to be God to be before and after everything. Now He's focusing on His humanity because He's talking to a suffering church. He says, I was dead. And we get used to the idea that Jesus died, but Jesus experienced all the pain of a cruel death. He goes, oh, I really know what you feel in the human process of loss. Jesus lost His friends, His family. Many of His family turned away from Him. They did not believe on Him until the resurrection. They were not believing on Him during His preaching ministry. His family did not, His brothers, His siblings. His city did not. His followers, His disciples in John 6, many of them withdrew and rejected Him. The 12, most of them fled. Jesus goes, I know about that. Not just the physical torture of death. I know about loss. I know about it. I know about being ridiculed. For years, I know what you're going through. I experienced it all as a human. And I want you to know that I have the, God gave me the power to have the answer as a man. He goes, so I'm tender. I have understanding what you're going through. It's not just that I'm God and I'm the first and the last. I'm actually a man that endured suffering. So I'm a sympathetic friend who's returning everything to you, not with, hey, get with it. It's, yes, with tenderness in my heart, I know the pain you're going through. I really do know about rejection, relational loss, economic loss, and the loss of my life and physical pain. Not just the fact that I'm God as the first and the last. Jesus experienced the worst that men could do, socially, relationally, financially, as well as physically. And He triumphed over it. And He says to us, He's saying, I have the power over death. That's what He's telling them. He's telling them, I came to life. I have a relationship with the Father to get the breakthrough. I know how to get the breakthrough. Stay with me. The reason I'm telling you, I know how to get life, I mean, how to release life. I did it. My whole story is a testimony that as a man, I know the pathway to victory, and I have the authority to ensure it. Stay with me. Every one of these statements are huge in their implications. Let's go to top of page three. Jesus is gonna war against everything that opposes His kingdom, to the church at Pergamos. Now, the next two churches, Pergamos and Thyatira, He's focusing on, it's not spiritual lethargy, it's immorality. The primary thing in these two churches that pertain to our culture is immorality. It's idolatry, which is a cult activity, Satanism, actually, and immorality. Now, the occult dimension's growing in the Western world, but the immorality is at an all-time high right now. To the church at Pergamos, what do you say to a church that is steeped in immorality, which is much of the church in the West? It's all over, it's all through the congregations, it's all through the leadership. To the church at Pergamos, He says this, "'These things as he who has the sharp two-edged sword.'" You have those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to commit sexual immorality. Now, those of you that you say, I don't quite get all this. If you want more on this on the internet, you could go to the Pergamos teaching, probably it's a six or eight-page handout, so we break down the details a bit more, and it's all on the website if you want it. It's there for free. Our copyright's the right to copy, so you can have it and you can put it in your own handouts and put your own name on it. It's yours to run with if you make Bible studies and share it with other people, it's yours. But I just wanted to point that out to you because it's quite an in-depth lesson here that we're gonna skip. The point I want to focus on is the fact that the church was, a portion of the church was just flagrantly yielding to immorality, like much of the church in the West is. He says, repent, or I'll come and fight against you with the sword of my mouth. But if you overcome, then he gives the promises. So the challenge is to overcome immorality, and then they would obtain these three promises if they did. But in order to do it, they needed a revelation of Jesus as the one with the sharp two-edged sword. Now the sword, it cuts two ways. For the people that repent, it's a sword that cuts their bondages away. It's a sword that cuts the chains off, so to speak, and liberates them. But if they don't repent, it's a sword that wakes them up and gets their attention. He says, Jesus said, I'll fight against you. You have to know that it's not a small thing to me. I will actually fight against you with my own sword of my mouth. Now the sword of his mouth is when he speaks his word, and it has consequences in our lives in a practical way. When Jesus speaks his word from heaven, the word of release, it breaks the shackles. The sword of deliverance, or it's the sword of judgment. Jesus said that Jesus with a sword needs to be preached to the church that's struggling with immorality. One of the reasons the church is so soft on immorality is that one reason they don't understand the inheritance, the glorious inheritance we lose when we yield the immorality. We lose our inheritance of a vibrant heart, and the Lord's inheritance in us is diminished. That's glorious. That's a gigantic truth in itself. But we also, a church that's steeped in immorality, usually they do not have a revelation of Jesus with a sword. And Jesus is revealing this to them. We need to preach on this. We need to pray this. The sword that delivers, but also the sword that stops and hinders those that refuse to repent, who call on the name of the Lord. I mean, those who call on Jesus' name, but they live in, they just continue in immorality. I assure you the sword will come in due time, one way or the other. If you repent, and as you're struggling, help me, Lord, help me. And he goes, I really will help you. I will liberate you with my sword. I will speak and I will liberate you. Because the sword of his mouth is his word that the Holy Spirit releases in our life. And the sword of liberation, of deliverance, means our heart gets set free. We're entangled in the weeds, so to speak, and the sword liberates us. That's a good. That's a sword of tenderness. It's a sword of deliverance. But that two-edged sword, it has another side to it. Cuts two ways. It says, I'll wake you up if you won't say yes to me, because you're losing too much and you don't know it. Paragraph A, Jesus has a sword that's released by the command of his mouth. Now, that sword will manifest his zeal against everything that opposes his people, whether it's sin in the church or the evil governments of the Roman Empire, like the church at this day at Pergamos. It was the government of Rome was opposing them. And Jesus was saying, hey, my sword will stop those guys too. I'll stop the people in the church that won't repent, and I will also stop the people in society that are coming against you, that are pressuring them to engage in immorality. I mean, people even lost their jobs if they didn't go to the pagan feast and engage in this. But Jesus is also saying, I will fight for you first with my sword, if you call upon me for it. You can read the rest of that on your own. Let's go to Roman numeral five. Now, Jesus is giving the next word, and you gotta put these two words together, Pergamos and Thyatira. These are the two messages of which Jesus is dealing in a very direct way with immorality. And he reveals himself as the Jesus with the two-edged sword, the sword that cuts two ways, positively to free us and negatively to stop us, as well as the sword that stops our enemies that are trying to pressure us into immorality. Now, again, our society, there's social pressure, but in the Roman world, they literally lost their job if they did not worship idols and engage in the activities in those idolatrous feasts, which is drunkenness and immorality. I mean, they really lost economically if they refused it. And so that's why Jesus said, hey, I'll help you. I will strike with the sword against those people doing this to you. Now, here he gives three more revelations of himself to help in the realm of immorality and idolatry, which, again, is the occult activity. It's more than just kind of stone idols. It's more than just superstition. There's demons behind those idols. This is demon activity. It says in verse 18, these things, he gives three revelations of himself. I'm the son of God. I have eyes like fire, and I have feet like brass or like bronze. It says, you allow the woman Jezebel to stir up immorality, just to say it briefly. Verse 22, I'll cast her on a sickbed, and those that commit adultery with her. Talking about people in the church that are buying this false doctrine of grace that gives them liberty and immorality. Verse 23, I will kill them with death, because I'll kill them physically to wake them up spiritually. I'll kill them physically to keep them from going over the line in their relationship with me to the next line, because I love them that much. He says, he that overcomes, I'll give him the power of the nations, and I'll give him the morning star. And that morning star, of course, we know the morning star is Jesus. The morning star, we get in the age to come, but we get partially now. That's the brightness of his beauty touching our spirit. Now, there's no thing that will free us from the temptations of this society, of the Western world, than the brightness of Jesus flashing in our spirit. Of course, we get it if we want it, if we go after it. It's called waiting before him in the word of God with a desire to obey him. Now, we haven't broken through on all of our obedience. That's why we need the help. So you say, hey, I'm struggling. Well, Jesus says, I'm here for the people struggling, but you're agreeing with repentance. So you have every right to call upon me to help you, and I will help you. You can have confidence I will help you. I wanna help you. Some folks think that Jesus gets happy only when we get the breakthrough. Well, no, Jesus is happy to help us when you're crying out and repenting and crying out. He goes, hey, I like that. When you're crying out and repenting, you're a candidate for the brightness to touch your spirit. The guy goes, well, once I get through this sin, then I'll get the brightness. No, you won't get through the sin until the brightness touches you to help you. So you need to have confidence. He wants to give it to you while you're repenting and stumbling and struggling and signing up to war against that sin yet again and again and again. He goes on, I mean, in paragraph A, he reveals himself as the son of God. Now, typically, Jesus revealed himself as the son of man more times in the New Testament, the son of God. He emphasized his humanity, but here he's emphasizing his deity. He's saying it will take the power of God to get liberated from the spirit of seduction in the culture. Beloved, it's not gonna be enough to change the laws, although I wanna see the laws changed. It's not enough to go through an inner healing program, though we got inner healing programs, I like them. We have to encounter God. The human spirit will only get freed from immorality when we encounter Jesus, not just the counselor, and I'm for counseling, I like counseling. Counseling just is tailor-made Bible truth touching your heart. But it's gonna be more than a program because there's a lot of counseling in the church that's reduced itself to ideas. Ideas are important. I appreciate good ideas, but ideas need power on our spirit with those right ideas. And my point is, it's not enough to have confidence in just right ideas, although you know the truth and the truth sets you free, but Jesus is saying this, you're gonna have to have an encounter of power with my spirit touching your spirit. I need to be to you the son of God, not just a philosopher that's talking you out of immorality. You need a power encounter, not just a one-off one because that's what everybody wants that's in a struggle. One power encounter, the problems go away. I'll talk about a regular series of even small increments of the Lord's power touching our spirit day by day, month by month, year by year type thing. My point is this, in our war against immorality, we have to have a supernatural dimension to it, not just a philosophical, psychological idea only approach to healing, nor just the legal answer. Let's change the laws in society and get immorality out of the land. Beloved, we can change the laws and I'm committed to doing that. That's part of the mandate of our house to cry out against evil legislation, but I do understand it will take a supernatural dimension for us to get the victory. The justice will never happen at the legal process alone or even the emotional psychological process. There has to be a supernatural breaking in for justice to touch the human spirit and to touch society in the way that Jesus said. It's not an accident that he revealed himself as the son of God, not as the son of man right here. It's interesting because in Revelation 1, where most of these descriptions are taken, he revealed himself in chapter 1, verse 13, as the son of man, but here he changed the title. He says, when it comes to immorality, you're gonna need power. You're gonna need a power dimension to get free. And I tell you, immorality is exploding in the Western world, of course, the whole world, but we need a church. It's not gonna be enough to have the churches. I don't care how big they grow and how nice they are and how polite they are. We don't need a church that is not offensive. We need a church first. I appreciate not being offensive if you don't have to be offensive, but the cross is pretty offensive. And the claims of Jesus are offensive, though they're glorious as well. We need the power of God. We need power in the church, not just good-looking technology and cool systems. We need power. It's the only way forward is power, and that's what Jesus is saying here to a culture struggling with immorality. Then he goes on, he says, I have eyes like fire. Now that's positive. Think of the fire in Acts chapter 2. Remember when they're in the upper room praying in tongues of fire? The fire is positive, but the feet like brass or bronze is negative. He goes, I'll give an impartation of fire. Remember the disciples on the road of Emmaus, they're walking, they said, did not our hearts burn like fire? I got those verses there in the notes. You can find them in Luke 24. Did not our hearts burn like fire? The Lord says, I will show, I will gaze upon you if you want me to. I will be the Jesus that releases fire on your heart if you want it. And I don't mean just at a fire conference or at a fire meeting. And I like fire conferences and fire meetings and fire thises and fire that's, but I'm talking about day by day, month by month, asking the one whose eyes are like fire to touch you in the word and to set your spirit on fire. More than a meeting, although I appreciate the meetings, the fire meetings. I'm talking about more than that. I want fire on my spirit. And I don't mean I feel it all day, every day. Jesus, I need you in a sinful culture to be the one with eyes like fire. And I do understand you do have feet like bronze, which is similar to the sword of the Pergamos, the chapter before. Jesus does trample down that which sustains its agreement with immorality. He will trample it down. And that's true in individual lives. That's true in societies. It's true in nations. It's true in eternity. I assure you, immorality will lose. I promise you that. His feet are bronze. The battle we're against, I mean, that we're waging with immorality, we will win it because the one we're calling on has feet like brass, like bronze. He says, I promise you it'll work. And I promise you the guys propping it up, I will bring them down in my time. I promise you. I'll bring many of them down soon and all of them down eventually. You can have confidence as you go forward in your war for the release of justice. Okay, let's go to top of page four. We'll just do this last couple briefly here since we're coming to the end of our time. Now Jesus talks to the church at Sardis. Now again, the church of Sardis was like the church at Ephesus. They'd lost their first love, though the language he uses here is, you have a name that you're alive, but you're dead. That's the same essence. They've lost their spiritual vitality. He reveals himself again as the Jesus. He holds the seven stars. He holds the people like the leaders in his hands. I mean, again, he holds the leaders, but he holds all the people. If the leaders, how much more all of the others? It's the idea. So to the church at Sardis, these things, says he who has the seven spirits. The Lord says, I have authority. I have authority as the son of man and the son of God to release the ministry of the spirit to you. I have the sevenfold spirit of God under my authority. Call upon me and I will release it and I will hold you, like he mentioned back in chapter two, verse one, like a star in my hand. Paragraph A, he has the authority to release the diverse ministries of the Holy Spirit to wake up a lethargic church. So when I need to be woken up, awakened spiritually, call upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, these seven facets of the Holy Spirit's ministry. Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. Call upon every dimension of the Holy Spirit. So let me ask you, as you war against lust in a culture, do you actually call upon the Jesus that has authority over the seven manifestations of the Holy Spirit? Or do you just grit your teeth and look the other way? It's not enough just to grit your teeth. We need to encounter the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I need the Jesus who wants to release the Spirit to my heart. That's the one I need to overcome the things that are the lethargy right here. We need the awakening of the Holy Spirit to overcome this spiritual deadness. Paragraph B, it says I'm the spirit of wisdom. I wanna just take a minute on this, real brief, real brief. Jesus will give you wisdom to know how to apply the word to your life. It's not just how do you get a job or how do you spend your money, that too, but Lord, how do I, give me perspective, give me wisdom. How do I do my schedule, my relationships? How do I do my fasting, my reputation, my ministry? How do I come, how do I go? I wanna get free of lethargy. I need you to counsel me with wisdom and counsel and understanding. Give me your perspective of my life. How can I get my spirit where I'm not stuck in deadness? And the Holy Spirit says, now that you're asking, I will tell you. If you don't ask me, I won't tell you. And so we need this ministry of Jesus to wake us up. It's not enough to get woke up like I'm in trouble. That's good to know you're in trouble. You know, the guy goes, I'm in trouble, I need a doctor. Okay, that's fantastic. That's half the battle right there. Now are you going to the doctor? No, no, I just know I need one. Isn't that something? I'm gonna get up to meetings and testify I need a doctor. I need to get my spirit woke up. Wow, that guy's so humble. No, now you need to go to the doctor. We need to follow through with the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the specific areas of our life. We need to follow his leadership. Paragraph C, we need the spirit of might. You can just read that on your own. We need might. The Ephesians 3.16, we pray for might. Jesus, release the spirit of might on me. Let's go to the top of page five. To the Church of Philadelphia. Jesus is holy, he's true, and he has the key of David. These three facets of his heart and his ministry. Paragraph B, he's holy. Now there's two applications to the fact he's holy. He's holy as a man, as the son of man, son of David, and he's holy as God, the son of God. He's holy in two different ways, and they matter, both of them in our relationship to him. As a man, he says, I walked in a sinful world among sinful people, and I know how costly obedience is. As a man, he's saying, I understand the plight you're in. They didn't like me either. And I don't just mean the world. The people of God didn't like Jesus. He says, I'm holy. I know what it means to obey in a culture, a religious culture, that would not obey. I know what it means. So he's talking as a sympathetic high priest, and B, as God, he's holy. More than just pure, he's transcendent. He's holy other than. He's superior to everything. Therefore, he's worth whatever price we pay to obey him. He's holy as a man. He understands our plight. He's holy as God. He's worth the price we pay to go on the journey. Jesus said, I'm holy, and if you get that, that will help you dynamically in the journey. Then he goes on, and he says, I'm true, paragraph C. And when he says he's true, he's about to give them promises that are so extravagant that they seem too good to be true. In verse 12, he says, I'm gonna make you a pillar in the temple of God. I'm gonna write the name of the Father on you, the name of the new Jerusalem. I'm gonna write my own new name. Gives him those four promises right there in verse 12. He says, these seem extravagant. These seem unrealistic. I promise you, I'm telling you the truth. If you will obey me, I will give you so much more than you could ever imagine, and the promise I give you is true. It's true what I'm telling you. And then he says, paragraph D, he goes, I have the key of David. I have the authority to give you a role in my eternal kingdom, not just an entrance into it. Yes, an entrance, but the key of David's more than an entrance to the kingdom. It's the places of honor and partnership with him in the age to come. He goes, I have the right to do that for you. I can open doors in this age, but I also can open doors for billions of years. I have all the authority as the ultimate son of David to do this. And when we begin to understand that Jesus, that can open and shut doors now, and the Jesus that opens and shuts doors forever related to our response to him in this age, that Jesus is a different Jesus than many people are worshiping in the Western world. Many people in the Western world are worshiping a Jesus that gives them more money, a few more friends, and more comfort, and hopefully a more anointed ministry one of these days. But the Jesus of the Bible has far more to give us, a little bit more money right now, a few more friends, some more comfort, and hopefully an anointed ministry. He wants to give us riches and treasure and honor and partnership forever and ever based on the choices we make in this age. The Jesus who is the king of our government that will fill the earth is a Jesus many believers don't think much about. I mean, they know technically he's that Jesus, but they don't relate to him that way as one with the keys of David, the over the whole Davidic empire and all the promises. I want to be a part of his government in the age to come as well as in this age, a little bit in this age, because that's, I mean, the greatest apostles just a little bit, and so all the rest of us under that, you know, it's just a little bit less, a little bit in this age and a whole lot in the age to come. I'm gonna be a part of his government. He says, I have the authority to give it to you. I will give it to you. I'm speaking the truth to you. I'm not lying to you. Verse 12 describes the key of David in full operation. Let's go on top of page six. We'll end with the final one. The three things he says to the Laodiceans, of course, they're struggling with lukewarmness. Lukewarmness is similar to the lost your first love of Ephesus chapter two, verse one, and you have a name that you're alive, but you're dead, which is Sardis chapter three, verse one. So from chapter two, verse four, I mean, in chapter three, verse one, the lost the love or your name, you're alive, you're dead. Well, that's rivaled right here with you're lukewarm. In verse 17 or 16, I'll vomit you out of my mouth. You make my stomach hurt. Jesus doesn't say you're repulsive. He's saying my heart and my stomach are hurt when I see all that I have planned for you and how little you're interested in it. It hurts my stomach to see so much waste in your life because I care so much for you. That's what that means. It doesn't mean that the person's repulsive. It means it hurts his stomach because he sees the truth of who they are to him and the potential they have and how they're squandering it because they had a little bit of money. They had a little bit of money. They're a wealthy church. They go, oh, we got things going. Jesus goes, you're kidding, you're kidding. This is how we're gonna do this because it hurts my stomach when I look at you. Of course, the Laodicean church would be the most descriptive of the seven to the church in America with the element of the immorality as well. But look what he says. He goes, I am the amen, verse 14. I am the true witness, the faithful and true witness, and I am the beginning of the creation of God. Paragraph A, when Jesus says he's the amen, he's saying, they said amen, I have it written there and more on the documents earlier on the website if you wanna read more on that, on the Laodicean church, we spent a week on that. When Jesus says I'm the amen, amen means agreement. In the Old Testament, when they gave their amen, they agreed to the conditions and the consequences of an oath. When you agreed with the conditions and the consequences, the good ones and the bad ones, you said amen. And so Jesus said, I require agreement from you. I require it. I did it as a man. I lived as the amen before God, the Father. And as the head of the church, I'm requiring that you relate to me on my terms. There must be an amen in our relationship. And I don't mean just a verbal one. You must come into agreement with my terms of the relationship. That's what he means when he says he's the amen. Because a lot of folks want the blessing, but the blessings, the promises are invitations, not guarantees. The promises are invitations, and if we have an amen in our life with God, then the promises become reality. Promises are not unconditional guarantees. They're invitations if we will respond. Many of the promises. Then Jesus says, I'm a true witness, a faithful one. He says, I'm gonna tell you the bad news about who you are, you're lukewarm, and I'm gonna tell you the good news of where you're going. Verse 21, he says, I'm gonna put you on a throne forever if you overcome. The bad news, you're lukewarm. The good news, I'm offering a throne to you. And I promise you, I'm not exaggerating in any one of them. I'm a true witness. You're in bad shape, and my stomach is hurt. I'm not angry. I'm not just expressing anger. I'm telling you the truth of your condition. I'm a faithful witness. But I'm also not flattering you. I'll put you on a throne forever if you'll break through in this area. Amen. And a lot of folks, they're not moved by either one of those truths because Jesus is not to them the faithful and true witness according to this portion of Scripture. Then he goes on to say, I'm the beginning of the creation of God. And the beginning of the creation of God, he's not talking about in time, in chronology. He was the first one created. That's not what he's saying. The word beginning, he means I'm the first. I'm the primary source of creation. I'm at the very beginning. Before creation, I had the source, and I have the beginning. In other words, the primary place of power, and I'm the primary cause of creation. In other words, if I have that kind of authority where I'm the source, I'm the beginning of its source, and I'm the beginning of its authority, I can control it, and I can create. Why are you content with a little extra money, Laodiceans? It's God talking to you, and I'm offering you a throne, and I'm telling you my heart is sick over where you are, and none of it's moving you. So the Jesus who's the beginning of the creation of God is the Jesus that has power over all creation, not just to originate it, but to direct it and bring it to its end purpose. It's the Jesus of the book of Revelation that's gonna cause fire to hit the earth. It's the Jesus that makes the new heaven and the new earth. It's the Jesus of indescribable power. He's the one talking to them and asking them to repent, but verse 17, they said, well, we got good stuff happening, and why should we get all excited? Things are going well. We're rich. Things are going good. Jesus is saying, do you know who it is that's talking to you? And we need a revelation of this Jesus. Amen.