⚠️ 🚨 CHRIST'S LETTER TO THE CONGREGATION AT SMYRNA !! ⚠️ 🚨

0:00Hey, it's Bubba Wallace from 2311 Racing. You know what feels like forever? Sitting on a plane waiting for takeoff. Good thing I've got Jamba Casino, with daily boost in social casino games on tap. This is a kind of fun that makes time fly. Why not turbo charge it down time? Play now at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. Sponsored by Jamba Casino, no purchase necessary, VGW GroupFord, where prohibited by law, 21 plus Terms and Conditions apply. Hey guys, we're running here. Welcome back to the channel. We're going to be back in Revelation chapter number two today. We're going to start reading in verse number eight. The book of Revelation, one of the amazing things about this series. We've called this how the church became so pagan. One of the things about this series of videos that I'm working on here that I don't want you to miss is the amazing detail in which the exact postal route that these letters would

1:04have been delivered gives us the order in which they're presented to us here in the book of Revelation. They also, and this is something that proves that the book of Revelation along with the other other books in the Bible had to be divinely inspired. There's no way that someone would have been able to do this to predict this in such accuracy as we pass through this panoramic view of church history. It's going to coincide with the order in which Christ sent these letters to the church, and the order of those letters is going to coincide perfectly with the way these things unfolded throughout church history. That to me is one of the big fingerprints that God placed on his word, particularly here in the book of Revelation. The period of time that the church of Smyrna, once again, this was a literal church in

2:06Asia Minor that was suffering great persecution for its faith, but it's also symbolic of the church as a whole from the time period of around 100 AD until approximately 313 AD. Now, something significant happened that placed the church well on its way to paganism around 313 AD. We will get into that in the next video, but that was not the case with this church. In fact, this church was so awesome. I hope that we can describe it. Can we describe a church as awesome? Is that okay? But they were awesome, man. I mean, these guys right here, they had their act together. They had their doctrine together. They had not left their first love. In fact, there is not one word of rebuke. There is not one suggestion of anything that needed to be righted, that needed to be fixed. There is only words of encouragement, and I mean, imagine being a Christian in this age.

3:15I mean, the things that they went through, obviously, while they were going through them, was horrible things. Imagine standing next to one of these believers at the judgment seat of Christ, especially those of us who were coming out of the land of see and church age. Wow, what a thought. I mean, that's a scary thought. Nevertheless, Revelation, chapter number two, verse eight, unto the angel of the church of Smyrna, write, these things says the first and the last. Which was dead and is alive. I know your works and tribulation and poverty, but you are rich. And I know the blasphemy of them that say that they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which you will suffer.

4:16Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and you shall have tribulation ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give to the crown of life, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. He that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death. So we find here this church in Smyrna. Once again, this was the second church, the church of Ephesus ran from Pentecost until approximately 100 A.D. once again, there will be some overlap in this. But it approximately 100 A.D., the church went into severe, severe persecution. For those of you who want to go outside of this realm and study and read some very, very shocking details of what these believers went to, went through. I do recommend Fox's book of Christian martyrs.

5:20I do not recommend you read it to your children, however, if you want to know what it was like and what was actually done during this period of time. Fox's book of barters lays out in great detail some of the persecutions and the sufferings that believers endured during this time period. But Christ writes to them, he says unto the angel, the church in Smyrna, write, these things says the first and the last. Once again, he is reminding them that he is before all things and he will be after all things. He is the first, he is the last and other places he is called the Alpha and the Omega, which means essentially the same thing, the first, the last, which was dead and is alive. Now one of the first things right out of the gate that Christ reminds this church very

6:21wisely is that he himself has overcome death. He says to them, I am the first, I am the callous, the creator of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, the one in whom all the fullness of the Godhead, dwells bodily, said to them, I was dead and I'm alive forever more. Why did they need this statement coming right out of the gate? Well, we'll find that out. They needed to be reminded that death is not the end for the believer. These things says the first and the last, everything that you are about to read comes from one who was before all things, will be after all things who has overcome death and is alive forever more. This is the one who is about to tell you what he has to say.

7:25Verse 9, I know your works and tribulation and poverty. Once again, this was a work in church. This was a lazy social club sitting around having potluck dinners playing bingo and all these things. This was a work in church. They were working to get out the gospel, to spread the gospel of the kingdom throughout the whole world. And they were busy about this. They stood for sound doctrine, just like the church of Ephesus did. They probably were very, very discerning and keeping out false teachers and false apostles, like the first church, the church of Ephesus, and they were busy. And Christ says, I know about that. I know what you are doing. I know the way in which these believers are serving him. He also says, I know about your tribulation. You notice one thing that he does it say, don't worry about your tribulation.

8:29It's going to be a bigger tribulation, the great tribulation is coming, seven years. He doesn't mention that. Why? Because there's no such thing. Once again, that teaching of a seven year future tribulation period is a creation of the Roman Catholic religion. It is designed to get your attention off of the one anti-Christ system that the book of Revelation reveals. There is no seven year tribulation. There is no pre-tribulation rapture where we're going to be rescued. This church right here suffered the greatest tribulation, probably any church on this earth will ever suffer before Christ returns. They were not delivered from it by a snatching away or a rapture. They were called to go through it and commanded to be faithful while they were going through it. Keep that in mind. You think, well, when Jesus comes back, he's going to rapture us out and then there's going

9:34to be suffering on the world. Tribulation is the inheritance of the saints throughout the entire church age. And you will suffer persecution if you live faithfully to the Lord Jesus Christ and not to this pagan religious system. He says, I know your works and tribulation and poverty. Now, a little historical mentions here, many of these believers were losing their property. Many of them were losing their property. The early church very, very much was persecuted by the Jews. The Jews went out of their way to persecute these new believers because Rome offered a little bit of freedom to the Jews. They were allowed to worship in their own way. They were allowed to remember the Sabbath.

10:34They were allowed to have the rules and Rome didn't intercede in that. They didn't go in there and say, hey, you got to knock all this off. Rome allowed the Jews a great deal of freedom. And the early church were mostly made up of Jewish believers. The early church had Jewish apostles, most of the people that they run to the faith in this time period were Jewish believers. And so Rome said to these Jews, you are able to conduct your religious beliefs and your religious ceremonies and all that stuff. And we will interfere with it as long as you keep the peace as long as the peace of Rome is uphill. And so early Christians had a little bit of protection because of this because they were considered Jews. But as these Christians began to come away from the teachings of the Pharisees and they were following Christ, this was creating somewhat of an uproar.

11:37You remember when the Apostle Paul went in and preached to the Corinthians or I'm sorry to the Ephesians and said to them, Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life. And they began to burn their boots on witchcraft. They stopped buying these idols that were being made. And so it was affecting the economy. It was affecting the peace because there was a great deal of uproar everywhere the Apostles went to preach the gospel. As it long before the Jews showed up and began to fight against the teachings of the gospel and proved themselves to be indeed enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says to them, I know about your poverty. They were losing their homes because of this because as soon as they were put out of the synagogue, you remember Jesus told his disciples, he said, the time will come when they will put you out of the synagogue.

12:39If you don't remember that, you can find that in the gospels. Jesus was saying to them, they were talking about the loveliness and the beauty of their temple and they had a lot of pride in their Jewish religion. And Jesus said to them, listen, you got to leave all that behind. That temple is coming down, it's going to be destroyed. Not one stone is going to be left remaining on another. That synagogue, they're going to kick you out of there. You're not going to be a member there anymore. Let me tell you something, the same thing will happen. If you remember most of these institutional churches that are out here today and you began to truly follow Christ as a disciple, if you began to read his word and see what it actually teaches and you began to make a ruckus, it won't be long, they'll put you out of that synagogue. They will. Just like Christ told his early followers, you are not welcome in the world, I mean institutional religion, if you are a true follower of Jesus Christ. Now welcome you as long as you come in, sit down, shut up, pay your money and don't

13:40make any trouble. These believers said no, we will be loyal, we will be faithful to the one who was dead, who was alive forever more. And as a result, they lost a lot of their personal possessions. Once they were kicked out of the synagogue, they no longer fell under the protection of Rome, because Rome only allowed the Jews to have their religious freedom. Once they were kicked out of the synagogue, it was as if they were disfellowshipped, no longer considered to be a Jew by Rome and therefore they suffered persecution, many of these people lost their homes, lost their farms, lost their businesses, lost a lot of these things. And Jesus said, I don't want you to think, you know, imagine this for a moment. When you go through great suffering as a Christian, what is one of the first things that Satan will begin whispering in your ear, where is your God now? Where is he at now? Does he see you? Where is he at?

14:41He's missing an action. He's absent. He don't know what's going on with you. And what are you pretty soon, you begin thinking that, where is God in this? Why is he allowing this to happen? Why is this going and Christ said to them, listen, I know, I know, I see it. I'm here with you, through it. I am he that walks in the midst of the candlesticks. Christ is right there in the suffering with them. And if you're suffering right now for the cause of Christ, remember what Jesus said. If they have done it to the least of you who believe on him, he will consider it as if they have done it unto him personally. Christ was fully aware of what was happening to these believers just as much as he is fully aware of the suffering, the disappointments, the things that we endure as believers on this earth today. The alienation by those who find us peculiar or weird or whatever the case may be, how

15:45they don't tend to become, I remember that. I remember that when I was an unbeliever, when I was lost, I didn't feel comfortable around Christian people, especially, especially, especially the ones that used to preach to me about my long hair, I never felt comfortable around them. But I did some mean-spirited people, y'all, I'll tell you. But that's not the case here, man. That's not the case. These guys here, Christ says to them, I know your works, you're busy. You're working, you're serving. I know your tribulation, I know that you are suffering because of this. And I know your poverty, but you're rich. You see, no matter how much on this earth you gain in terms of material possessions, you lose everything the moment you breathe your last. There's nothing upon this world on this earth that a man can gain, that he can carry with

16:46him beyond this life. They were not interested in earthly possessions. They were interested in heavenly treasures. Remember Jesus Christ said, don't lay up your treasures upon this earth, where mouth corrupts, rust corrupts and thieves break in and they steal it. Somebody hacks in your computer and gets your password and impsied out your bank account. We could happen, it could happen to any of us. Christ said, don't let that be your heart, lay your treasures up in heaven because where your treasures are, there will your heart be likewise. Now you compare that today. Today's Christians have ministries telling us how to save and invest money so that we can have earthly treasures and they do that in the name of Christ. If you've ever listened to Christian radio, it ain't very long before one of these guys come on there and let me tell you how to invest for the kingdom.

17:48Well this church knew what it meant to truly invest in the kingdom and yet they had no earthly wealth whatsoever. He said, I know your property but you are rich. They didn't own a single church building. They didn't own a single fellowship hall. They didn't own conference centers or family life centers or anything that the current church, the legacy in church has and yet Christ had not a single word of condemnation. Today's church by contrast has big buildings, big auditoriums, light shows, laser shows, PA equipment. They own vast amounts of real estate and Christ has nothing good to say about them. So those of you who believe that wealth is a sign that God approves of you, nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is more words of condemnation in your Bible against hoarding of riches than there

18:53is against pedophilia. I know your works and tribulation and poverty but you are rich and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not but are the synagogue of Satan. This passage of scripture right here is probably one of the go to passage of scripture for the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and the Roman Catholic church. They love this verse, all of them because it would shock many of you to know how closely related all of that is, very closely related. This passage right here is used if you began to study this stuff, it's not long before you will be taken, you will come across some of the white supremacists neo-Nazis teachings

20:01that the synagogue of Satan was those fake Jews that came in from Europe called Ashkenazi and they will say that that's who Christ is talking about here and the problem with that is this occurred long before that ever happened. Now it is true that the synagogue of Satan are those who claim to be Jews and are not. But what we have to do is define Jew from a Biblical point of view the way the word was understood at this time. See the white supremacists come along and they go, oh look those Jews, those people who claim to be Jews but are not, they're not, they're Ashkenazi, they're from Europe, they're not those people are the synagogue of Satan and while they are right about that, that is true, it's not completely true, there's more to the story. So let's lay this groundwork real quick so that you'll understand because if you look at this

21:05and you say the synagogue of Satan are those who claim to be Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan if you only are looking for ethnic Jews in this passage of scripture, you're going to miss some very, very important things that you'll need to discern truth in the days ahead. This is not just about the people living over in Israel right now that claim to be Jews. Although it does include them, they don't make up the whole. We have to understand how the Bible describes the word Jew. Now during this time period, the word Jew was used to describe those who believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were followers of God. And as the gospel was preached to Abraham, God said to him, in thee, and in thy seed, all the nations of the world will be blessed. What is the seed of Abraham? It's Christ. It is

22:05in Christ that all them will be saved. There is a nation of chosen people. God does have a nation of chosen people. It is called Israel, but it is called the Israel of God, the spiritual Israel. It is the fulfillment of everything that God promised throughout the Old Testament through the prophets, the promise that he made the covenant with Abraham. All of that is fulfilled in the church. The church is the spiritual fulfillment of all of the promises that were made back then. Israel was no longer a physical nation, but a spiritual people. A Jew was no longer a national identification because of a human bloodline. It was because of a bloodline of those who were washed in the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ. Now, we'll see this in a couple of places in the

23:06Bible. Romans 2 verse 28, Paul tells us this in Romans 2 verse 28. He writes, for he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. Here, Paul is saying, a Jew is not necessarily someone who's been circumcised in his flesh, in his penis, his foreskin. That was a symbol, an Old Testament physical symbol of a future spiritual reality. The future spiritual reality was that God would circumcise the heart. He would change the heart. Circumcision would take place spiritually, internally, in a man, and that is what makes a man a Jew. The circumcision of the foreskin in the Old Testament was nothing but a type that preshadowed the spiritual truth that would be revealed at the point in time that the Messiah came

24:09and atoned for the sins of his people. Now, Paul is laying this argument out here because he's trying to tell these very arrogant self-righteous Jews who believe they didn't need to be saved from their sin. He's telling them that your Jewish ancestry promised you nothing. Your Jewish religion promised you nothing. It is not circumcision that saves it is belief and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and circumcision of the heart. That is the identificating mark of those who truly have been regenerated and born again into the family of God. That is the descendants of Abraham. In Romans chapter 9, verse 6, Paul says something, again, very similar, but he further illustrates this truth when he says, not as though the Word of God has taken down a fake for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. What does he mean here? They are not all Israel that are of Israel.

25:15What he's saying here, Israel is a spiritual people. Israel is not a nation that you could point to on a map. Israel is a nation of people that belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Israel is and a true Jew is one who has accepted Christ as the Messiah. He does not blaspheme Christ the way these modern-day Jews do today. The way they do in their Talmud and all of these things, but a true Jew is one who honors, reveres the Lord Jesus Christ. He has been born again into the family of God regenerated by the Holy Spirit, circumcised in the flesh of his heart and made a new creature in Christ. He is therefore a descendant of Abraham. He is a Jew and a member of the spiritual nation of Israel, the Israel of God. That is what it's saying here. So in order for you to understand

26:20that, now I know that's different than what you've been taught. You see it all over the place. You know, the little star of rim fan, what they call the star of David and everybody, all these Christians will post that on their Facebook page and they'll say, I stand with Israel. You don't even know what Israel is. I support the Jewish people. You don't even know what the Jews are. They think fleshly. They think carnally. They think of a Jew as a physical bloodline and not a spiritual one because once again, we talk about this a lot on this channel. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. Satan always takes him back to the physical, to the carnal, puts his attention there. When he thinks of Israel, he thinks of a physical nation, not a spiritual nation. And that is the reason why dispensationalism was brought into the church to deceive and to keep people's eyes off of the true villain that the book of Revelation is going to reveal to you.

27:26So he says to them, I know the blasphemy of them who claim to be followers of God, the true worshipers of God, those who Christ said must worship in spirit and in truth. I know the blasphemy of them who say that they are followers of the way. They are followers of the truth. They are followers of the life. They're not. They're deceived. They're liars. They're the synagogue of Satan. That includes all religions that appear to be serving God, but by their very nature, they stand in opposition to his Messiah. That includes Judaism. It also includes Rome, Catholicism, Western, Masonry, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Islam, and a great, great majority of that which calls

28:38itself Protestant churches in America today and throughout the world. The charismatic movement, all of that. Those who claim to be serving God, but yet by their very deeds and acts, stand in opposition to him, to his gospel and to Christ. This is the synagogue of Satan. It has, the Bible says, a form of godliness, but denies the power thereof. That is the synagogue of Satan. It's interesting to me, if, you know, I remember when I was reading all this stuff, I came across this website. They always give you this kind of, people don't want you seeing this truth. People don't want you watching. They'll unsubscribe you from this. They don't want you seeing, because they know, that don't get people even more interested, you know. You need to hear this information. And they'll start talking about the synagogue of Satan. And I watched a few videos of some

29:42guys that were doing this. Clearly, these guys were neo-Nazis. Even one of these clowns was doing the Nazi salute. And historically speaking, Adolf Hitler was always surrounded by Rome. You can look up online, you can find pictures of him standing with various Roman leaders from the Roman Catholic Church. Hitler was very much propped up and funded financed by the Church of Rome to do what he did, because Rome had a reason for that needing to be done. There's a lot of history behind all of that stuff. There's a lot of history that we've been told that simply not true about the Holocaust. But nonetheless, Hitler was very much financed and backed by the Church of Rome. Now, it's amazing to me that every time I've ever seen someone talk about the Jews being the

30:46synagogue of Satan, they always seem to be very sympathetic to the Church of Rome. You remember, I told you before, it's one and the same. It's one and the same. The Jews and Rome literally, it's a very strange relationship that they have. It's very strange relationship. On one hand, they seem to oppose and almost hate one another. Then on the other hand, they always seem to be working in cahoots with one another in opposition to the Gospel. In the same way, Rome and the Jews work together to crucify Christ, the same way Rome and the Jews work together to persecute this Church in Smirna, the same way Rome and the Jews work together today to deceive you about dispensational theology, the physical fake nation of Israel and the fake Jews in the Middle East, and all of that right now, they work in cahoots to do this. That's something you need to keep in mind.

31:48I know your works, your tribulation, your poverty, but you are rich, and I know the blasphemy of them would say they are Jews but are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. All right, sorry about that. I'm back. I just got a emergency phone call. Someone just told me that apparently there's been a tornado that touched down here in my hometown pretty close to where I'm actually filming that. So if all of a sudden this camera disappears, you don't know what happened. Anyway, verse number 10, fear none of those things which you shall suffer. Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried and you shall have tribulation ten days. Now, I want to point out something to you here. Here we have a time stamp, ten days. Now, a few weeks ago, I did a video where I said that the Antichrist system would reign upon the

32:48earth for 1260 years. Someone corrected me and said, Brother Ronnie, I know you probably didn't mean it. You probably just misspoke. You meant to say 1260 days because that after all is what scripture says. And we know that you just misspoke. And I wrote them back and I said, I appreciate your concern. However, I did not misspeak. I meant to say 1260 years. You need to understand that the Bible has an interpretive principle called a day for a year. It means that a day symbolizes a year in Bible prophecy. So when he says here, fear none of those things which you shall suffer. Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may

33:50be tried and you shall have tribulation ten days. There was a ten year period of time called the Diacoletion Persecution that began around 303 AD. I'm sorry, I should have taken notes on this. I'm telling you this from memory. 303 AD to 313 AD was known as the Diacoletion Persecution. And you can read about that. We're not going to go into it too much. But Diacoletion basically was under a lot of pressure from those that surrounded him and said, hey, look, they're creating problems. They're creating dissension. People are losing money in the economy because of their preaching of the gospel. No one's buying our idols anymore. There's uproars. The Jews are constantly beating on our door. Say it. You've got to put this out. And finally, Diacoletion said, all right,

34:52enough of this. We're outlawing it. We're banning Christianity. This is not another set, another denomination of the Jewish teachings. This is another religion altogether. We don't know what this is. We're going to label it a cult. We're going to outlaw it and we're going to persecute it. And in fact, exactly the things that Jesus said here came to pass. The devil cast some of these believers in the prison. And they were tried for 10 days, symbolizing the 10 years of Diacoletion persecution from 303 to 313 AD. This was the time that you read about. The persecution of Christians by Rome, where Christians were literally, their bodies were covered in pitch, in tar and oil and things. They were hung up on poles in the Roman Coliseum. They were lit on fire, used as human torches. The Romans loved gladiator blood sports. They loved violence,

35:58just like our culture today. They loved the gladiators, just like we like. The MMA fighting and all of this kind of stuff. The more brutal, the better was the call of Rome. And therefore, they would bring Christians out to satisfy the bloodlust of those who paid to come and witness such things. And they would feed these believers to the lions and the Roman Coliseum. Many were beheaded and all kind of things. Rome has always been brutal to Christianity. Those of you who think it is a good thing that we lay down our differences and unite together with the Church of Rome, that we should lay down our doctrinal beliefs. Let me tell you something. That is the synagogue of Satan that we are told to come out from among them and separate ourselves. It has many different names for the different flavors of it, Catholicism, Freemasonry, Islam, even Protestantism, all these different names. But if it is only an institution

37:09that serves to be in place of Christ, or if it's an institution that serves to be against Christ, it is anti-Christ. Therefore, it is a part of the Church of the synagogue of Satan, and therefore, we are to come out of it. Now, Diocletian wished to stamp this out. He wanted to do away with it. He said, we don't know what this is about. We don't recognize it. He didn't have the ability to understand it because a natural man can't receive the things of the Spirit of God. So, he outlawed it. And these believers were severely persecuted, put to death because of their faith. They lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, and all of these things. And yet, there is not one word of rebuke against them by the Lord Jesus Christ. Fear none of those things which you shall suffer. Imagine this. You're going through this persecution.

38:14You're going through this. You have family members that have been arrested, drug out of their home, taken to jail, and are being persecuted, put to death, burned at the state, lit on fire, fed to lions, and Christ says, fear none of it. The Bible says, the wicked flee when no man pursues him, but the righteous are as bold as a line. You may be sitting there right now thinking, I could never suffer such things. I could never suffer such things. Let me tell you something. These were not led to see in church believers. They had practice enduring suffering and tribulation for their faith. They had worked their way up the ladder to martyr them. Here in America, we'll compromise with anything. Anything that has a Christian label tag to it. Oh, I mean, it's a Christian movie, a Christian

39:15ministry. It's filled with profanity and vulgar language, but don't worry about it's a Christian ministry. It's a Christian movie. We'll fall for anything. As long as someone says, oh, that's Christian, we will fall for an entire political party who parades itself around, the party of morals and values. Oh, yeah, they must be Christian too. It's a synagogue of Satan and it has many threads. It's like looking at a spiderweb that just goes off in many different directions. This is the way the synagogue of Satan operates under many, many different disguises. And they had resisted all of the various threads of this tapestry of deception. And here they are being persecuted for it. Here they are and Christ is saying to them, don't fear any of this stuff. Why? Because he had conquered

40:17death and so would they. I know from our vantage point, that is hard to understand. I don't think we should be airing in about this. I don't think we should say, yeah, I would lay down my life for Christ. You remember Peter did that. I think we should be praying that God would give us the strength to stand up against things we already know that are wrong. The traditions of men, the church traditions of men that are not biblical. We only do them because they are traditions of men. The holidays that we love so much because their traditions, even though we begin to find out how pagan they are, we won't separate them. Why? Because we love the deeds and the doctrines of the Nicolayotans. But this church didn't. They separated from it. And Christ said to them, fear none of the things that you'll suffer because

41:19of it. And they were suffering big time. It wasn't just a fact that their neighbors looked at them and thought they were weird. It wasn't just a fact that somebody was disappointing because they weren't going to show up for Easter Sunday service. These people were really being persecuted. They were really suffering. They were dying for their faith so much more than what we've ever. I mean, somebody says something bad about the Bible or somebody says something bad about Christianity or the institutional church in general. And Christians are so quick nowadays to go, oh my god, look at the persecution we're suffering. We know nothing of persecution in this country. Nothing. Not yet. Not yet. You will have tribulation 10 days. Be thou fateful. How long, Lord? How long before you deliver us unto death? Be thou fateful unto death. And I will give thee a crown of life.

42:28Let me ask you a question. I want you to seriously think about this. If you're a believer today, and I'm sure you are, if you're watching this, if you're a believer today, we are the legacy in church age. How would you like to stand behind one of these martyrs? As a member of the Church of Laodicea and watched them receive the crown of life given to them from Christ, and then you're up next. So bring it. It's a sobering thought to think about. The person in front of you gave everything, sacrificed everything, including their life, and Christ gives them a crown. We can't even imagine probably how beautiful this thing would be

43:31since it was designed and created by Christ Himself. And in all of a sudden, we walk up next. And we couldn't even separate ourselves from our pagan holidays. Fear none of those things which you shall suffer, did devil. Shall cast some of you into prison. You may be tried and have tribulation for 10 days. Be thou fateful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He that overcomes, shall not be hurt of the second death. What he's saying to them is this. Yes, there's a resurrection. There's a resurrection coming when all men, both good and evil,

44:32will be resurrected and stand before God. Those who overcome by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, those will go into the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world by their father. Those who are not found written in the Lamb's book of life would experience the second death and it is final. It is the final destruction. It is the perishing that we were warned about in John 316. Those who reject Christ, the Bible says, will perish. This is the second death. They will be resurrected to life, to stand before God, to receive the just punishment of their rejection of Christ, and all of the sins that they have committed. And then they will be destroyed, finally and forever.

45:44That's a terrifying thing to think. You know the doctrine of eternal conscious torment where a person would be alive and he would be in hell for the rest. That is not as frightening to me as the thought that God would raise you up from the dead, allow you to see loved ones about to inherit this beautiful, beautiful kingdom that Christ has created for them before the foundation of the world. And you are so, oh, there's my family, there's my daughter, there's my mom, there is my, whoa, not so quick. That's not for you. That's not for you. You perish. What a, what a frightful thought to be gone, to be erased from the memory of mankind,

46:50to be utterly and finally and completely destroyed by the second death. I don't know about you, but that's more frightening to me than the thought of being alive and being in hell for eternity. All of these people that think, well, when I die, I'm going to go to hell and I'm going to party it up forever. No, you're not. Because in order to do that, you would have to have eternal life. The Bible says, and they will not perish, but have everlasting life, those who believe in Christ. That means those who do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation will perish in no longer exist. Christ says to this church, those who are putting you to death, they will come to their end. Be faithful unto death. I will give you a crown of life. That is eternal. What an encouragement,

47:58what an encouragement. Let me tell you something. These Christians in Smurna, they weren't living for today. They weren't living for stop markets, portfolios. They weren't buying multiple homes and multiple houses. They wasn't investing money in stocks and bonds and all that. They weren't looking forward to tomorrow because tomorrow wasn't promised to them. They had a far greater hope and a far greater promise that had been given to them. The promise of resurrection, the promise of eternal life, the promise of standing before Christ and hearing well done, now good and faithful servants. This is the church of Smurna. Hats off to them, guys.

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