Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of overcoming temptation through a deep encounter with Jesus, focusing on the dangers of immorality and idolatry as highlighted in Revelation 2. He warns that these sins can dull our spirits and grant access to Satan, urging believers to live in obedience to experience God's power. Bickle stresses that understanding Jesus' nature—His authority, love, and desire for us—can empower us to resist temptation. He encourages the congregation to seek a vibrant relationship with Christ, which is essential for spiritual vitality and overcoming sin.

A couple quick announcements. This will give you a chance to get a seat. Again, tonight we're going to be receiving another offering for the conference expenses. I mentioned this morning that we needed a million dollars, and people gave generously last night, and others gave outside of Kansas City besides. And we are only $300,000 short of the million, so we're excited. Now, $300,000 sounds like a lot, but it's not so much. Go ahead, if you would like the conference notes and don't have them, lift your hand up and the ushers will get them to them. But I gave that announcement this morning, and the Lord stirred a brother, and he gave us $100,000. So now we only need two. That works. I appreciate the big ones, and I appreciate the little ones, because everybody is sowing into this. They make an investment of their heart, and there's a connection that happens when we invest our heart, our time, our prayer, our money into different movements of the Holy Spirit. Now, tonight at 5.15, we have an info meeting, receiving our devotional prayer language, or the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues in the personal sense, in room 3501. And then we have the awakening teen camp reunion as well, so you can go to those. Now, we're at the last day of the conference, obviously, and I am—I don't know what the word is. Impressed isn't the right word, but like, wow, that so many of you are here in the afternoon, going through these long afternoon sessions after you've been day and night in meetings. Like, where are you getting your energy at? Where are you getting your spiritual hunger? I mean, this is gloriously ridiculous that you're doing this. I mean, I know you're staying up till midnight, I can hear you. And then you're here early in the morning, and you go all afternoon, and I'm thinking, when are they sleeping? But here's the deal I want you to—and then we're going to get right to the teaching. Here's the deal I want you to kind of register. You're getting so much information, obviously. You're drinking from a fire hose. You're trying to drink, not from a water fountain, a fire hose. Every session, morning, noon, and night, you get so much information. And so don't think you need to drink it all in. It's impossible. But we have these sessions on the internet. Of course, you can get the MP3s or whatever, but they'll all be on the internet free if you want them. And go back in January and February, and the sessions that moved you, you know, get alone, or maybe with a friend, and go through them slowly and stop them. Take a breath, journal a little bit, pray a little bit, then move on. Because really what's happening here is you're becoming alerted to what it is you want to go deeper on. There's no way you can assimilate all the things you're hearing. So if you feel like it's too much, you're right. It's impossible. But now you know in January and February some things you can go watch again. You know, some of those night sessions, morning sessions, I mean, they're amazing. Okay. Now remember to tweet some of your friends when something touches you and become a messenger through the internet, the one-line messengers. I just want to stir up people to maximize the internet for good, not just for sitcom humor and silly stuff or perverse stuff. Let's be messengers on the internet. Let's fill the airwaves with the truth about Jesus. Okay, we're going to look at page 45. Then we're going to take a break in a little while, and then Misty and David Breimer will come up and sing again. This session, Encountering Jesus, Overcoming Temptation, Revelation 2. We're only going to do half of this session, half of this. Take a break and then do the second half. So here on this afternoon we're spending the entire time, we're spending the entire time on this one set of notes. So we're only going to get halfway through it, and then we're going to take a break and come back and finish it. Father, I ask you in the name of Jesus, Lord, to release the spirit of glory. God, I ask you to release the spirit of living understanding. Even now, come and mark our hearts. Come and touch our hearts. Even now, Lord. Lord, we're tired in our bodies, our spirits are hungry, and we feel overwhelmed, but come and touch us even now. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, Revelation chapter 2, it's a very practical chapter. At first glance, it may seem a little kind of hard to get a hold of, but it is so practical. Paragraph A, the Holy Spirit is preparing the church to operate in great power. That's what He's doing right now. In this next couple decades, I mean, many of you are in your 20s, and when you're in your 30s, and when you're in your 40s, the Holy Spirit is working right now in a very specific way, preparing the church across the earth to move in the power of the Spirit, far beyond what we're moving in right now. Now, we're not waiting for 30 years, we're believing God today to move in power. But, I mean, as the days go by, and the preparation increases, we're going to see the power increase too. But here's the thing. The Holy Spirit requires that we live a lifestyle of obedience. We must live in obedience to move in greater power. We don't earn the power by obedience. Is that what I'm saying? But a spirit of obedience brings us into unity with His heart. Now, the two main sins that are highlighted the most in the book of Revelation, without looking at the notes, what do you think the two main sins that the Holy Spirit highlights in the generation the Lord returns? Number one, immorality. He highlights that sin. And number two, it might be surprising to you, idolatry. You think, idolatry? What? Well, from a biblical New Testament point of view, idolatry is more than just worshiping an idol or a statue. It actually is the subject of seeking to have power that's outside of the will of God. Idolatry is about gaining power. That's really what it is. And idolatry is associated with money. Now, money is not evil in itself. The love of money is evil, but not money itself. But the enemy wants to stir up the people of God to seek for power. And, of course, he's highlighting the occult realm. We've talked about that already. And all these innocent occult shows that are wooing people in to desensitize their spirit to the whole realm of darkness, making it look glorious. But the Holy Spirit is also equipping the church to overcome immorality. These are the two main strategies of Satan in this hour. Paragraph 2. Immorality, catch this definition. Immorality includes all sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. I'm going to catch that. Say that again. I'm saying this to be helpful. I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm not saying like, oh man, come on, give me a break. I'm going the other way. I'm giving you a break. I'm tipping you off on what keeps your spirit dull. Who wants to have a glorious Savior in relationship but a dull spirit and you can't feel the power of it? What a tragic way to live, though many believers live that way for decades. They love Jesus in that general sense. And they know He's glorious but they never feel the power of the word. They don't feel the power of who He is and their hearts are dull and defiled and they're wondering why. And they think, well, maybe the devil's just attacking me. No, you're opening doors in agreeing with darkness because somebody told you out there that in the grace of God you could dabble with immorality and it wouldn't affect you. It really does affect you. Young ladies, I don't care what that Christian man says. And young men, I don't care what that Christian woman says. Immorality will defile your spirit. It really will. I'm trying to be helpful, not trying to be mean. So the couple comes and says, well, we're engaged, we're going to get married in six months. How far can we go? I go, no sexual activity, none. What? I go, why would you want to spend the six months leading up to your covenant of marriage with a defiled spirit? Why do you want to start your marriage with a dull spirit? Go the other way. I mean, obey the Lord. Get a hold of His grace. On your wedding day, have a bright spirit. I mean, I don't, all the things you did behind, let the Lord forgive you. But go to your wedding day with the one you're going to marry with a bright spirit, not six or twelve months of immorality leading up to that day. We're going to get married anyway. No. It's about the leadership of Jesus in your life. That's the issue. And I encourage people, it's your privilege to go to your wedding ceremony with a bright spirit. I mean, if she knows you love Jesus even more than you love pleasure, and you know that about her and she knows that about you, and that will strengthen your marriage all the days of your life. That knowledge will. And if you've stepped across the line, say, OK, I blew it. That's what the grace of God's for. I'm going to declare war on it. I'm going to repent of it. And we're going to line back up, and Lord, we're going under your leadership. If we blow it again, we're not going to make excuses. We're going to call it sin. And we're going to sign back up and repent and receive your grace and go hard again. So I'm not into condemnation. If you blow it, repent and get confidence before God. But your spirit still gets defiled even though God keeps forgiving you. I do not want to live with a defiled spirit. I want to live with the joy of a vibrant spirit. I love feeling God's presence. I love enjoying the Bible. I love it. For years, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, I loved the Lord intensely from age 15 on. I mean, I was radical for the Lord from 15 on, but I didn't like the Bible at all. The Bible was so boring. The only thing worse than the Bible was prayer. But I loved Jesus. I loved meetings. And I said, Lord, if it only wasn't for the Bible and prayer, I would be a radical believer. And to the shock of my life, some time went by. Some of my thinking got clear. And my spirit began to change. And I began to enjoy the Bible. That was a miracle. I remember when I was about 23, 24 years old, I would tell people, Unbelievable, unbelievable. Mike Bickle loves the Bible. They go, so? I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't know what that means. I love the Bible. They go, well, cool. You're supposed to. I go, no, no, no, no. I used to like, ugh, the Bible. I mean, I always quote loved it technically, but I just didn't ever read it. And when I did, it was like, you know, lemons next to me. I had to take a bite. You know, it was sour. I just didn't, I didn't. It was boring. I said, God, if you would write better, your friends would read more. Well, the Holy Spirit says, well, if your capacity increases more, you'll feel more. And I began to go on this journey to see my capacity increase to feel God, to understand Him. And, you know, and it's been 30 plus years that I've been enjoying the Word and prayer. Oh, I love it. It's more precious than gold. When my spirit feels vibrant and I'd be alone and just open it up and, oh, I'd feel it. I would rather have that than millions of dollars or a big ministry or everything else. That is the most precious possession in the world. So I'm talking to you as a shepherd, telling you the glory of this. I'm not trying to put rules on you because a lot of people are preaching the face, the grace of God in a false way. They're empowering people to live in compromise and to feel good about it, but they never feel God. I want to empower you to not feel good about compromise and position yourself to start feeling God more. I do a far greater service by convincing you to do that than making you feel good in your compromise. Jesus knows, I'm still in paragraph two. He knows this. Immorality, and that's the subject we're going to focus on in this session. And the revelation of Jesus to overcome it. That's the real point. And then the next session, we're going to talk about the eternal rewards that Jesus promised to help motivate people to stay free of immorality. Jesus actually linked four specific eternal rewards to overcoming immorality, to help us overcome it. But many young believers don't know anything about those four rewards. That's why they don't motivate them. They don't even know about those rewards. But you're going to learn about them today. Let's look at the, again, paragraph two. Jesus knows that immorality, immorality grants legal doors of access to Satan to oppress you. Immorality, you are giving Satan a key. Satan's, you know, breathing down your neck through his cohorts, demons, trying to get you. But there's certain things he can't touch you with until you hand him the key. Here, and when we walk in darkness, we open the door and invite him in. He says, thank you. I couldn't get in until you opened the door. And again, some Christian leaders will dress it up and say, ah, you know, boys will be boys. It's not a big deal. No, any time you give access to demons to your life, whether a little bit or a lot, it dulls your spirit and defiles you. It's not like when a demon touches you, your life is over. They just defile and dull your spirit. It gets worse than that over time. But the early days, they're just defiling you and making you feel bad. Paragraph B. Now, we're going to focus on two churches in Asia Minor in the ancient 2,000 years ago. Two churches, Pergamos and Thyatira. Now, say those two words. Pergamos? That's a church. That's a city, actually. Thyatira. You got them. I mean, they're strange names. They're in Asia Minor, which is today the nation of Turkey. And so, you know, there's ancient sites that can tell you where those cities, these churches are even today. Well, there was these two churches. Now, there were seven, you know, that Jesus spoke to. But these are two of the seven. But he gave these two churches the same message. So we're going to study, real brief, what he said to those two churches. Because they both had the same problem. They both struggled with immorality in a major way. And they both struggled with idolatry, which actually is about power and covetousness or love of money. It really is. And, beloved, this is the description of the church in America. It really is. Now, here's what the problem was. Both of these churches had teachers, just like we do in America, who gave a false grace message that told them that immorality and covetousness or idolatry was okay. Some of the teachers said it's not okay. Others of the teachers in the church I'm talking about. I'm talking about teachers in the church. I mean, they claim to be born-again, spirit-filled Bible teachers. They were giving a false message. And then Jesus appeared to John the apostle. He said, John, in the book of Revelation, go tell those two churches to stop listening to those false teachers that are in their leadership. Boy, that must have been an intense conversation when John made known. He wrote the letter and said, hey, in your own leadership team, you've got some guys that Jesus does not like what they're teaching. Boy, that could have been a heavy meeting. Well, let's read these two statements that Jesus said to John the apostle and then told John to go tell the leadership team of those two churches. Chapter 2, verse 12. Now, to Pergamos. Remember, Pergamos is a city. It's a city in Turkey or ancient modern Asia Minor. Tell the church at Pergamos in that city. Tell them this. Verse 14. Some of their teachers hold the doctrine. The word doctrine is the same as the word teacher. I mean, teaching. They have the teachings of Balaam. Well, who's Balaam? Balaam's an Old Testament guy. You can read about him in Numbers 22 to 25. Balaam was a prophet. And he was teaching about immorality. Can you believe that? You say impossible. It's happening all over America. A lot of teachers are condoning immorality. Lots of them are. And I'm not just talking about the immorality of the gay agenda. I'm talking about the immorality of the heterosexual agenda in the church. Somebody goes, you know, the homosexual this, homosexual that. I go, I have more problem with the heterosexual sexual sin that's going on in the body of Christ in America. I'm not picking on one or the other. I want to call everybody who loves Jesus to a vibrant spirit by agreeing with God. He says, tell them. They have those who hold the doctrine of Balaam. They teach people about immorality. Now here's what he says in verse 16. Look at this. Tell them this. Repent. Or I will come to you and I will fight them with the sword of my mouth. Now could you imagine telling the church, Jesus is going to come to your church and fight you. Jesus fight us. I thought he loved us. Well he's going to fight you because he loves you. And what we find out later, and you can read the notes because we're not going to go through this in detail. He's going to fight against the sinful agenda in their life because he loves them as individuals so much. Now we don't hear much about the Jesus who fights against the sinful agenda of the people he loves. Because our idea is, if he loves us, he looks the other way. It's opposite. Because he loves us, he intervenes with zeal. Well let's go down to the next verse 18. He says, now tell the church just down the road, Thyatira, that was a neighboring city. They have the same problem as you do, Pergamos. Pergamos and Thyatira, you need to go on a church retreat together, all your leadership team, and figure out how to clear this thing up according to the word of God. I added that part. Verse 20. He goes, you have this lady named Jezebel. Now this is not the same Jezebel as the Old Testament Jezebel. And don't name your daughter Jezebel, okay? You want to name your dog Jezebel, that's okay, but not your daughter. He says, there's this gal named Jezebel, this is not the Jezebel with Elijah, that was a thousand years earlier. Two different Jezebels in the Bible. She is seducing, she's a Bible teacher, she had a lot of people listening to her. She's seducing my people, telling them it's okay to commit immorality. Tell her to stop it. I love her, but tell her to stop it. Verse 21. I'll give her time to repent. That's amazing. He goes, I am so against what she's teaching, but I love her so much, I will give her a chance to change. Isn't that remarkable? But here's a trick. Or a deception, I mean. Sometimes when the Lord's giving us time to settle an issue, we think that he's okaying the issue. Well, I've been in this for months. Doesn't seem like anything's wrong. The Lord says, no, don't take my patience as my endorsement of what you're doing. I'm giving you a chance to connect the dots to settle the issue. I don't want to disturb you. But I love you so much, I will if I have to. He says, verse 21. I gave her time to repent. Verse 22. Now here's Jesus. I will cast her onto a sickbed. Wait. That sounds like Jesus is going to cast her onto a sickbed. That's because that's what it says. I hear people say, Jesus could never do that. I says, well, if I'm going to believe in what Jesus is like, I'm going to go by what Jesus said, not by what that preacher down the road said. Jesus said he would do it. Now it's rare, but he does do it because he cares so much. Not because he's angry, it's opposite. Because he cares and he knows it's going to destroy them in a very, very devastating way if he doesn't intervene to stop them. And she won't stop any other way. So he's going to try to wake her up. He says it's going to get more intense. Not only am I going to cast her onto a sickbed, the people in the church that are involved with her, I'm going to cast them into great tribulation. Now this doesn't mean the great tribulation at the end of the age. That's not what it means. It means I'm going to cause trouble for their life. I'm going to wake them up. And I don't want to do it this way, but they won't listen to me. So I'm going to box them in, hem them into a corner, and get their attention because I love them. They have no idea how destructive this is to their life. Now he goes on a little bit, he takes it up a notch. Verse 23. Now you cannot take a razor blade and cut verse 23 out of your Bible. It has to stay in your Bible. It's in there forever. Some in the American church, we like to pick and choose the verses we like. You can't do cut and paste with the words of Jesus. We have to take them all or take none of them. We can't take the ones we want. Jesus is not running for office, gaining popularity. He is king. He's declaring the truth because of love. Now look what he says. Don't cut and paste this. I will kill her children. Not spiritually, physically I will kill them. Tell her that. Go tell the church I will kill the disciples of Jezebel, the people in the church that buy into her false doctrine. Why would Jesus kill them? I thought he loved them. He's going to kill them because he loves them. Because if they continue on, they will end up, some of them, denying their faith. I tell you, eternity is a lot longer than their short life now. And Jesus would say, trust me, you want me to intervene drastically and cause your eternity to be very different. You really do want me to because I love you. Now again, this is Jesus preaching Jesus. I'm just reading what he said. I look at him and I go, you know what? You're the big guy. I'm the little guy. I salute what you say, whether it's popular or not. I go with you. That's where I stand. And that's how we need to take our posture. Paragraph C. Now this is a controversial biblical truth. But it's still a biblical truth. That's the point. It's not a popular truth. It's a biblical truth. And we're going with it. I want to embolden you to stand strong where God's word stands. Here it is. Paragraph C. Believers are sometimes, it's not common, but it does happen. They are made sick. And they die prematurely before God wanted them to die. They die out of the will of God earlier than God had desired for them and planned for them. And they die under God's discipline. Let's read the verse. It's a much ignored passage. You won't hear this very often on Sunday morning. I've preached it a few times over the years and the church kind of gets real quiet. It goes, my goodness, that wasn't very positive. I go, actually it is. It's all about wake up so something bad doesn't really happen. Something worse than physical death. Here's what Paul said. Could you imagine this statement on a Sunday morning? And I've done it a few times. It was a little bit intense. He says in verse 1, 1 Corinthians 5. There's sexual immorality among you. A man has his father's wife. And the idea is, there's a man. He marries a younger woman. And his son, you know, maybe close to the same age, says, hey dad, the new wife, she's really cute. And the son and the new wife are having sexual relationship. And it gets exposed. But they won't repent. They say, well, you know, God will forgive us. We're going to stay on this. We're going to stay in it. Paul said, unbelievable. And the elders were a little bit like, uh, what do we do? They, you know, we like them. And they're cool people. I'm throwing that part in. And they won't quit. And they say they love Jesus. They're just going to go down the church down the road anyway. Why should we deal with it? They're just going to go join the other church. That's what I hear all the time. Paul says, well, let's do it this way. Verse 4. In the name of the Lord Jesus, when you gather on Sunday morning, stand up, deliver this man over to Satan. And let Satan destroy his flesh. Make him sick is the idea. In other words, pray and release the protection of God so Satan strikes him, makes him sick. So he goes, ah, I hate this. I'm going to repent. And Paul said, do that. So that his spirit will be saved. He won't end up denying his faith as this sin increases over the years. Now that's a pretty bold action. I've preached this a few times. You know, I've tried to do it. I check it out. But that's intense. Do you know what? This is going to be restored in the church before the Lord returns. I look at that and I go, Lord, intense. But the Lord's answer is, Paul said, I want the man's, God wants the man not to keep continuing in his darkness. He might end up denying his faith one day. Fully. Paragraph D. Here's the premise. Immorality is dangerous. Now, most people don't think it is in their own life. They think, I can dabble with a little immorality. I can control it. You know, scale of 1 to 10, hypothetically. I can do a 1 and a 2 because I can get out of it any time I want. I will never go to 3 and 4 or 5 and 6. Hypothetically, greater levels of sexual sin. I can do 1 and 2. I can do a little internet stuff. I can mess around a little bit on the side. Do a little of this. It gets up there. You know what? I love God. I'm going to bail and I'm going to get straight. Doesn't work that way. Because what happens is that we dabble with immorality. Our heart gets cold. We don't expect that. Our mind gets darker. Our conscience feels defiled. And demons have more access to trouble us. So therefore, they're in a state, a condition where they're less willing and able to say no. So 1 and 2 leads to 3 and 4. And it keeps going. Paul said, this is dangerous stuff. Don't dabble with this. Beloved, God's raising up a generation of young people that are so connected to Jesus Christ and the grace of God that they know it's their destiny to live with a vibrant spirit. To live faithful to Him. And that the gift, yes, the glorious gift of sexuality, because sexuality is a glorious gift in the covenant of marriage. Look at 1 Peter 4, 17. The time has come for the discipline, the redemptive discipline, judgment in the house of God. I hear teachers all the time, there is no judgment in the New Testament. Beloved, that's just a theory born in man's imagination. That isn't in the Bible. There is judgment in the church in the New Testament. I'm hearing that more and more. Matter of fact, the closer we get to the coming of the Lord as the decades unfold, the judgments of God will increase. As evil increases, I believe there will be more and more preachers against the judgment of God to try to counter the truth of this doctrine. The time has come for judgment to begin in the house of God, then to the world. Yet the preachers go, there is no judgment after Jesus. They go, what Bible are you reading or are you cutting and pasting? That's not safe to do that. We want the whole Jesus, not the American Jesus. We want the whole Jesus. Top of page 46. Well, paragraph E, Paul continues to the same church of Corinthians, you know, the one we talked about, turn that man over to Satan. Here's a few chapters later, Paul's writing to the same body of a group of elders. He says in verse 30, now he's talking about the communion table. They're breaking bread and having a meal together and sharing the communion elements. He said, for this reason, beloved, really pay attention to this verse 30. For this reason, many, like that word many, I go, Paul, are you sure? The word's many, shouldn't you say some? I tried to change that word to some, but I got too afraid and I went back to the Bible. For this reason, many are weak. They're sick and asleep. Asleep doesn't mean they took a nap in the afternoon. It means they're physically dead. He goes, many believers are sick and dead because they take communion and they disobey the Lord persistently and intentionally. Because when we take communion, we're really saying to the Lord, we recommit ourselves to the covenant. I'm not talking about believers struggling and they hate their sin and they repent of it. You have confidence in the grace of God. I'm talking about believers who intentionally, persistently say, no, I'm doing this immorality because I want to. I understand the grace of God, Jesus, and you can't talk me out of it. Paul said this, verse 31, if you would judge yourself, which means repent. He goes, if you'll judge yourself, you won't be judged by God. If you would just do it yourself, declare war on the sin, you might not even get free for a while, but you're warring against it and that's a place of safety. I'm not saying that you're struggling with immorality, you're going to get struck dead tonight. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying as long as you're warring against it with sincerity, it may take you some time before you break free of all of its tentacles, but war against it, don't just give up and give in and settle with a lifestyle of immorality. Paul goes on, verse 31, let's read it again. He goes, if you would judge yourself, in other words, if you would call it sin and don't make up some crazy biblical definition that it's okay, call it what it is, judge yourself. Be honest. Paul said if you do that, God won't judge you. God would much prefer you judge yourself by you say I'm wrong and I'm warring against it than make God wake you up to convince you you're wrong. And beloved, know this, you already know it, there's a thousand Bible teachers in the land that will prove to you from the Bible you're okay in your sin. Don't believe it because it's going to injure your soul and they're never going to be around to say, sorry, I guess it didn't work for you, did it? That's disaster to me. Paul says, verse 32, when we're judged, it's not just the devil, sometimes the Lord lifts His hands and the devil comes in. He goes, no, it's the discipline of God. Some people say, it's not God, He doesn't do that. Paul said, it's the discipline of God so we don't end up with His eternal judgment at the end of our life. The point is, we can reverse the judgment of God by repentance. Okay, one more passage. I've taken most of my time in the introduction. That's what notes are for, because you read the notes on your own. One more passage, Paul makes it abundantly clear. How God, how the Jesus of the New Testament relates to persistent immorality. He, because of love, He commits Himself to judge that believer, to wake them up so they don't lose more than they've lost already. Look at this, 1 Thessalonians 4, this is an intense one. Well, the other ones are pretty intense too. He goes, each of you should know how to possess His vessel. His vessel means your physical body. Now, every one of us, we're made a little different. You have emotions, you have life circumstances, you have life pressures, you have certain dispositions. Everyone's a little different than the other. Paul says, learn how to possess or to carry your bodily desires in a way that's sanctification or with holiness. Don't get tired, go drink some alcohol, go watch a movie, get with some loose people, even though they say they're Christians, you know their morals are loose, and then just act silly, and then the next day go, oops, I've stepped over the line. Of course you are going to step over the line. Learn how to possess your own body in a way you don't do that. And everybody's path is a little bit different. He said, let me get specific, verse 6. The general rule is learn how, where you should go, what you should do, what you should eat, what you should drink, what you should not eat and drink, who you should, what you, I mean, how you should not touch somebody, what you should not be talking about, where you should not be alone. Learn all of that stuff so you can possess your body in honor. And again, everybody's path is a bit different. He goes, now let me get real specific. Verse 6. That no one should take advantage and defraud his brother in this matter. What's he talking about? He goes, more serious than just general immorality is what he's describing. He goes, there's two couples in the fellowship, in the church. And this innocent brother, you know, he trusts the other brother. He says, hey, other brother, you love Jesus. I love Jesus. We're in the church. So the innocent brother, he's not watching carefully how the other brother's relating to his wife. Because he goes, I'm not worried about you. You love Jesus. We're in the church. You're fine. So the innocent brother's not paying attention. Paul said to the guilty brother, you're making moves on that man's wife. And you're taking advantage of the fact he trusts you because of Jesus. You're defrauding him, meaning you're tricking him. You're lying to him every time you do this. And he doesn't even know, the innocent brother, what you're doing with his wife. He goes, in the covenant community, the church, he goes, this is unthinkable. He goes, immorality out there, don't do it. But covenant, members of the church doing this to each other's spouse, unthinkable. What a betrayal. It's a double betrayal if there is such a thing. He goes on in verse 6 and he says this at the end. The Lord is the avenger, or a translation says, he's the judge of this. He says, the Lord, guilty brother, stop it. Stop it. The Lord really gets stirred up when a brother tricks a brother and moves in on his wife. He really does not like this. He's the avenger, or the judge. Verse 8, some of the people said, Paul, Jesus doesn't judge like that in the New Testament. The cross took care of it. Everything is fine. If we dabble a little bit with our brother's wife, a little bit of immorality, hey, you know, boys will be boys. What about the grace of God? Paul said, I thought some of you thought that way. Verse 8, anyone who rejects this teaching, he's not rejecting me, he's rejecting God who gives the Holy Spirit. He goes, anybody preaching this doctrine that God will not avenge this, he goes, Paul said, they're not rejecting my teaching, they're rejecting God himself, no matter what they say. So settle the issue. Roman numeral 2. Now I'm just going to give broad strokes, and we're only going a few more pages here, but even just the broad strokes to advertise these pages to you. Kind of, you know, note to self, you know, in a few weeks or a month, you know, when you get back home and things settle down, go back and study this notes. And on the internet, I took this session and gave a lot more detail to it to our students at IHOP. So we've got, I've developed this teaching quite a bit more on the internet, and again, it's always free. So if you want to develop this more, you think, I'm a little interested, but you know what, it is our fourth full day of 18 hours a day of meeting. I'm a little overload right now. So just write, note to self, read this one later. Because this is a very important passage of Scripture. Revelation 1 to 3, paragraph 8. This is so glorious. I mean, I just want to stop and go, ooh, I love these three chapters. John the apostle is reporting a vision about Jesus. Jesus stands in front of John. For three chapters, Jesus is talking to John. How would you like to get a three-chapter interview with the resurrected Christ? Well, before you say yes, remember, John felt like a dead man when he saw him. He was so terrified. So say, well, yes, but Lord, you know, help me. If you're going to visit me at that level, at least help me. Now here's what happens in three chapters. Here's the glorious point that we're not going to break down much today. Jesus highlighted 30 descriptions about his majesty. Now he only gave brief statements, but every one of these 30 descriptions, we could spend our life on these 30 descriptions. They are so full of meaning. Now we only have a little phrase. I am the first and the last. I am the beginning and the end. I am the one with eyes like fire. I have the face like the sun, et cetera, et cetera. Here's the point. Each one of those little phrases, if we study the rest of the Bible, we get the big picture of what Jesus was revealing about himself in these 30 descriptions. But he didn't end it there. He also gave 18 eternal rewards to motivate the church to obey him. Now, my burden is this. Many believers do not know these 30 descriptions about the one they love. They know a few of them, and they don't know almost any of the 18 eternal rewards. Well, Jesus revealed these descriptions, and he revealed these eternal rewards in order to motivate us to obey him. If we don't know them, then we won't be motivated by them. The church is so weak and just tripping around in so many places. Not the whole church in our nation. I'm talking about the church in the West. But so much of it is so steeped in compromise. Let's learn what Jesus gave us to motivate us, and let's be motivated by it. But we've got to learn it first. B, this is what we're looking at today. This session that we're nearly done with, and then after the break, the next session. About the subject of immorality, to these two churches, Pergamos and Thyatira, he highlighted four aspects about himself. Here's what he was saying. You want to get free from immorality? Know these four things about me. Then he added, I'm going to give you four eternal rewards to motivate you to say no to immorality. Now these rewards are glorious. They are so powerful when understood, they will motivate you to say no to all. Everything outside of the will of God that tempts you with sinful pleasures. I have thrown myself into those four eternal rewards and those four descriptions. Well, I want to study all 18 eternal rewards, which I have, but I want to really know them way better. But these four, man, I pray them, I tell Jesus, I want to know these in my relationship with you. And I'm just introducing that idea to you. Because we're in a generation that immorality is exploding. And the only confidence I have is an army of young people who love Jesus, who find out the truth of these four aspects of his majesty. These four eternal rewards, they assimilate them in their lives and they preach them boldly to everyone they know. So my prayer is that you'll sign up today and say, I don't know what those four are. And I don't know what those four rewards are or those descriptions, but I'm in. I'm with sight unseen. I'm in. I'm not even going to read to the next page. I commit. I'm in. If those are the four Jesus gave, that's good enough for me. Paragraph C, let's look at the four descriptions. He said, verse 12, he's talking about himself. He stood before John, tell them this. He who has the sharp two-edged sword, Jesus meant himself. He goes, tell them I have a sword. Wow. Well, it's more than that. Tell them I will fight against them with my sword because I love them. Okay. Description one, we have to know the Jesus who has a sword. A lot of Christians don't know that Jesus. But Jesus said to the immoral churches, if they know this, this is going to help them. This is going to wake them up if they know this. Number two, verse 18, tell them I am the son of God. Now you say, well, we already know that part. No, no, he means more than just the general Jesus is the Savior. He's the son of God. Move on to the next point. There's a lot related to this. Tell them I am superior in my power, my rewards, my mercy, my pleasure. I am superior to immorality in everything. Convince them of that. That's the message. Number three, tell them I have eyes like fire. Tell them I have burning desire in my heart for them. That when I confront them, it's only because I love them. When I rescue them, I'm not angry at them. I love them. When they know how I feel about them with my burning desire, it will give them courage to run to me and to see who they are to me. They're not worthless. They're not helpless. They're not filled with shame. They are the delight of my heart. Tell them my eyes burn with fire because my heart does. Now, many believers, they know God loves them in the technical sense, but they don't have a revelation of the bridegroom God who burns with desire for them. Beloved, this is critical to overcoming immorality. And then number four, tell them my feet are like brass. I will step in and step on circumstances to wake them up if they won't wake themselves up by hearing the word. I will box them in a corner. I will change the circumstances. I will make it difficult for them to keep in that immorality. I'll give them time, but tell them this. I'm not just the God that forgives. I have feet like brass. I'm going to step in, step on their circumstances, wake them up, and make it really uncomfortable and difficult to stay in their sin. And they'll cry, okay, okay, okay. But they may lose two or three years in the process. Now, here's the problem with a lot in the church that the Lord loves so much. They don't believe Jesus can step in like that. Their doctrine is he's just kind of a, you know, I see these pictures of Jesus kind of like, you know, he's got a little lantern late at night, knocking on the door, you know, kind of a, you know, blonde-haired Scandinavian, semi, you know, half-girl, half-boy Jesus kind of. No, no, I'm just, he comes in glowing blue eyes. Please give me one more chance, please. And there's the sovereign believer, all-powerful, mighty, I mean unbeliever. No, Jesus, I gave you a chance. You didn't give me the money I wanted. You didn't treat me right. Out of here forever. Oh, please, please give me one more chance. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. He's not begging. He's sovereign. He's powerful. He has feet like brass. He has a mouth like sword, eyes like fire, face like the sun. He's superior to everything, and he's totally committed to you, and he's coming after you on his terms. That's the Jesus we need to know. Not this little flimsy, ah, American culture effeminate Jesus with blonde hair and blue eyes. I like blonde hair and blue eyes. My wife has blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyway, I like that. But he's different than this. We want the real Jesus, not the American culture Jesus, that's growing big mega ministries and everybody's promise, easier life, more money, happy, comfortable in their sin, and they live spiritually dull, spiritually bored, no power in their life, and we got mega ministries, and all the little ministries are imitating them because they're so desperate to get big because they have no sense of identity as to who they even are. Paragraph E. These eight truths, the four descriptions of who he is, mouth like a sword, son of God, eyes like fire, feet like breath, and the four rewards, which we're going to look at in the next session, hidden manna, white stone, power over the nations, and the morning star. What do those mean? Beloved, we must know what these mean, at least a little bit. I don't think we'll know fully what they mean till the age to come. These are the four rewards. Jesus said, if you get these, you will not want to continue in immorality. Well, most believers I know, they don't know hardly anything about these eight truths. So they stand before immorality, and they break under the shame and the power, and, oh, I'm so weak, and it's too late. I'm just destined to live that way. No, you're not. You're not destined to live that way. I've seen people live for years in immorality, you know, 18, 25, 35, or whatever the age. Suddenly, they begin to have an encounter with truth, and the next 10 or 20, 30 years, they live with a vibrant spirit, going, what kind of delusion was I in those 10 years? And they were Christians the whole time. Top of page 47. We're going to end with just paragraph B, and maybe C. And then you just have to read the rest on your own. And again, you've been drinking from a fire hydrant for four days. You can't remember this. So I'm just really telling you what's in the notes, so you can read them in January, February, and March on your own time, with a nice cup of coffee, and a friend or two, and journal, and cry, and pray, and say, Lord, show me this more. Paragraph B. These four descriptions. He's the Son of God. What he's saying, I am superior in every way to immorality. If you sin, my love is superior. I'll forgive you. If you're in bondage, my power is superior. I can free you. Oh, I have left the pleasure. My rewards are superior to the rewards of immorality. You'll see. It will be far more satisfying. Then the second thing, he goes, I've got eyes like fire. I want you to know how I feel about you, while I'm rescuing you, while I'm confronting you, while I'm rebuking you, while I'm helping you. Whatever different facet of his relationship to us, at whatever stage we're in, in resisting immorality, or adultery, or any other sin like that, Jesus says, I feel so deeply. If you have confidence about how I feel about you, you will run to me instead of run from me when you see your sin. See, a lot of people, they say, okay, I hate my sin, but they don't know that Jesus with eyes of fire, that speaks of his love, not his judgment. The sword and the brass feet speak of judgment. The eyes of fire speak of desire for you. They said, if I knew he liked me, I would run to him, not from him. But I think he's like really mad at me, like my dad is. No way. If he finds out, beloved, he already found out. Well, I mean, if he really finds out, he really found out already. His feet are like brass. He will hinder. He'll give you time. But I promise you this. And if you believe this promise, not only will the fear of God grow in you, it'll shake you up. I want to promise you something. That Jesus with feet like brass, he will step in sooner or later and stop what you're doing. He's going to let you do it first. He says, you judge yourself first. You repent. I'll give you some time. So the guy goes, how much time? How much time? I don't know. One guy gets a few weeks, few months. Another guy gets a few years. Nobody knows how much time. He says, I love you. I know your frame. I will stop you eventually. And if the church believed that, they knew it was only a matter of time. They would have a whole different spirit of the fear of God in their relationship with God. And then he says, my sword. Now the sword has several ways. The sword can liberate us, the sword of the word. Or the sword can trouble us. And I'm not going to go into it. I'm out of time. So you can look at that in more of the notes. And again, check out on the website at ihop.org or mikebuckle.org, which is part of IHOP. It's an IHOP ministry. I break these things down in greater detail. Amen. Let's stand. We're going to take a little break. Then we're going to come back.