From Ephesus to Laodicea: A Journey Through Revelation

Doctor David Spoon: 00:00:11

Hello, everybody. Here's what's coming up on today's experience. It's Doctor Dave's.

That's right, Doctor Doctor Dave's devotional diamonds of the day, also known as Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee's, where my daily devotions become some of our spiritual reflections. Sound effects placed throughout the show which have nothing to do with life.

But the Bible teaches there's a time to laugh, and some of you really do need a good laugh. The review of the goofy news which proves Jesus is coming back sooner than you think. Take a look around.

It's not hard to figure out life lessons for our faith that we could actually use. Probably won't if we sit on our blessed assurance humor that will force you to think, why does this guy have a radio show?

Well, that's an easy answer. Cause I'm a really strange guy, that's why. Also, Bible trivia for fake and yet somehow real cool prizes, your phone calls, and more.

Welcome to the David Spoon experience. Local national in heavenly talk. My name is Doctor David Spoon and I will be your host for the next 5,400,000 milliseconds.

Get ready for one of the more bizarre experiences on live radio. Here is the key to the show. We don't know what we're doing. We have no idea what's going to happen, and we don't care.

But for the next few minutes, I want to talk biblical love with you. So here we go. We're asking questions about living life as a Christian. That thing right there, what day is it? I believe it's a Thursday.

sk this question, in the year: 2024

Now, don't tell me you're expecting more of a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, because that tells everybody where your faith is really at. Are you expecting God? No. People are like, well, Dave, it's at the end of the year. I'm sorry. It only takes a moment for a miracle.

So are you expecting more? Do you have faith? Are you operating in faith and anticipation? Or are you living, thinking, I think the other shoe is gonna drop.

It's all gonna go down. Do you trust that God is in charge? Or do you look at everything and listen to everything and then respond?

A great preacher once said, try not to be reactionary. Be actionary. Don't react. Act in the kingdom of God.

Expect more in: 2024

That's the question we're asking. Look, if you have an opinion, a comment, a thought or a question, we don't want that to die of loneliness because we consider that to be sad.

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Talking to Jammin Jacob, ladies and gentlemen. That's like spending time relaxing and chillaxing. Thank you, David. Happy Thursday. And yes, that is me playing the piano in the intro.

You know, it is amazing how well you do that, too, and how you set up a live piano in that studio, how you fit that in there and then you're just playing that like playing the ivories. You're just, it's just amazing. I just want to give you big props. Here it is. Golf clap. There you go. Yes.

Instead of a keyboard under me there is a piano. Definitely. That's right, folks, here's the bottom line. Why in the world would you call us?

Well, first of all, you're probably crazy, but beyond that, you might call us. You might text us. By the way, you got to say that slower because we live in Texas. So if I say Texas, then you're thinking, is it Texas or text us.

Okay, why would you text us? Well, we'll tell you that in a second as well.

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That's the at. He must increase from John 330. He must increase, I must decrease.org because we're a nonprofit entity. So you can email davidimusincrease.org, comma.

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And we talk about this on different levels because people become afraid to share because they don't want to sound bad on the radio or they don't know how exactly to say it. And it never, ever matters. The Lord always takes it and makes something of it, that it blesses people, it always honors the Lord.

And if you remember Isaiah 43 seven, we were created to bring glory to God. And the Bible says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

So when you give a praise, report it, and reinforces it in your life, it blesses other people. And by golly, it honors the Lord. That's good. And that's two by Gollis today, by the way. Additionally, it can be a prayer request.

We're not the kind of people that think, oh, well, you're just gonna pray about it. Yes, exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ask God to enter the situation and change it, because when God enters the situation, it changes.

You think, well, you gotta do something. Yeah. You gotta start with your partnership with God. If you want hearts to change, it's God that has to change the hearts.

You want better leadership no matter what you do. And we encourage people to participate in the elements of our society that they give us the freedom to participate in.

But you start every decision on your knees, especially when other lives, and including your own life and your family's lives are in the balance. So you pursue and you ask God for help, and people are like, well, you think God's gonna help me with my finances? Yes.

Do you think God's gonna help me with my relationships? Yes. Think God's gonna help me with my health? Yes. Do you think God's gonna help me with the way this country's going? Yes.

How would the world be if the entire world repented? Be a different scene, right? Probably not gonna happen that way if we look in scripture.

But doesn't mean you can't ask God to move upon the hearts of the leaders. The Bible says the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. That means any person in leadership, and the Lord directs it wherever he desires.

Well, let's pray that it gets directed well, because some of those leaders need a lot of prayer and stop praying that God opens up the ground and swallows them whole. Okay? That's not the goal. The christian goal is to pray for the kingdom of God to manifest. That's what we want. So prayer requests? Absolutely.

Doesn't matter what level they're at. How about a scripture? You want to share something cool? Share it. You call up and share. We're open for all of that.

We want everybody to stay on board because this is a fellowship. It's not a church. We don't do communion and baptism. It's a fellowship. Get together, talk, pray, laugh, cry, all of it.

And we do goofy stuff because we're goofy. Here's the bottom line. I want you to participate and engage.

We're going to get into the scripture, and as you know, on Thursdays, we're in the book of Revelation. And I can promise you I will get more than one or two. I don't like you anymore emails. That's all right. I love you guys.

And remember, as we go into the book of Revelation, you're not required to agree with everything I say. I'm simply going to bring up a couple of different points and let you figure it out. Because you know what?

When you stand before the Lord, you're not going to be able to point to some teacher on the radio, some pastor in the church, some person who discipled you, and say, well, this person said, you have to give an account before the Lord. And that requires you to know and to do. Okay. All right.

So with all that stuff, I will tell you later on in the second 60 minutes, we're going to do Jake's take. I do want you to be aware of a schedule change coming this Monday. I encourage you to check out the website to see what that's about.

Schedule change on Monday. And then tomorrow we're doing our interview with Eddie DeGarmo. Of Degarmo and Key.

And for those that don't know Eddie DeGarmo and key, both of them, DeGarmo and key, I think they did, like 17 albums, and that's. And that's only a part of what Eddie DeGarmo has done. Most of you know, of some very famous singers. It'll be.

It'll surprise you greatly to find out that, you know, how they got into the business through Eddie DeGarmo. And I mean, well known, well known singers. You're gonna go, what, guys? A legend. So that'll be a lot of fun. We do that tomorrow.

Assuming, of course, that this time he doesn't forget. All right, so additionally, to all that, you want to reach out to us, you know you can.

In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and creatures of all ages and sizes, we're going into the book of Revelation, and we're going to do something that I didn't do. I mentioned I was going to do it, but I wanted to finish on that particular teach. I told you something, and I want you to be prepared for this.

We're going to do a examination of the seven churches. Now, we're not done with chapter one by any means of. And we haven't gotten into the various elements.

As we get into the different verses, as we get past it, or go into verse 13, we're going to see different images. We're going to talk about those images next week. But prior to getting there, we need to go back.

And the reason we need to go back is because we need to look at the churches that are being identified and the churches that are receiving the letter. So if you'll remember in the letter part, in the earlier part of the text, Jesus said this, I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last.

What you see right in the book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Those are the churches that are going to receive the letters.

We've mentioned that it's a mail route in Rome. That is helpful, but I want to look at these churches and get into a couple of things.

We're also going to examine whether these churches are these different church periods or are these just different churches. So I'm going to offer up a couple of different thoughts on that. But first, I want to talk about the seven churches.

Let's understand something very important about these seven churches. All seven churches. Jesus addressed all seven churches. He functioned in one, two, three, or four elements. So let me say this.

All churches received instruction. All churches received promises. Okay? Did you hear what I just said? All churches received instructions. All churches received promises.

Six of seven churches received a commendation, like good job kind of thing. Two of the seven churches received no criticism. So I want you to understand something.

Not every church gets a commendation, not every church gets a criticism, but every church gets instructions, and every church gets promises. That's the first thing you need to know. Ephesus, smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. Let's talk about that. Each church.

Here it is. Let's start with Ephesus real quickly. Ephesus, their commendation. They rejected evil. They persevere, and they have patience.

Cool their criticism, their love for Christ was no longer fervent. The instructions, do what you did at the beginning, the promise, the tree of life. Now, if I just keep quoting all these and saying all these things.

You guys won't remember that. I'm just trying to be honest. Let's just talk about the realities of this. I'm going to break it into a much more practical element.

Out of these seven churches, Laodicea, the lukewarm church, they received no condemnation. Ouch. That's painful. Smyrna. In Philadelphia, these two churches received no criticism. Look it up. Revelation two, eight through eleven.

Revelation three, seven through 13. Read it. You'll see it. But what's amazing about it is that every church receives instruction.

And no matter where you're at in your walk, whether the Lord's giving you some commendations or doing well or some criticisms for you to need to work on, he'll give you insights, instruction and wisdom, because that's how the Lord operates. And every church not only gets instructions, but they get a promise. And here's something I want you to understand.

Every church got a different promise. Now, they're all interconnected, but every church got a different promise. And the Lord has promised you things in your life, and that's awesome.

It's an awesome thing, and it might not be the same thing that somebody else was promised. Does God keep his promises? Yes, and amen. He is faithful and true. He will never fail on a promise.

The only thing that fails is some people will say, God promised me this when he didn't. That's where the failure comes in. But I want to talk about something that's a little more bizarre and a little more challenging, and that is this.

You look at these seven churches, and I'll offer this as a trivia question, not expecting you to necessarily get it right, but I'm going to offer it as a trivia question, give you a chance to respond to it. Out of Ephesus, Laodicea, Pergamma, Philadelphia, Sardis, Smyrna, and Thyatira. Which of these seven churches closed first?

None of these churches are active, just so you can know, okay, none of them. And it doesn't count when they had a church in a place and then the place got run over and then they put some other church there 500 years later.

That's not the same church. It's not complex. But between Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, which of them closed their doors first?

That's the question I'm asking you. And the reason that I'm asking you is because the answer will probably surprise you. So here's something I want you to be aware of. Okay.

And if you, by the way, if you want to answer that trivia question, I'll give you a chance to do it real quickly. Okay. If you think you know and if you're wrong, you can't get upset. This has nothing to do with it. You can't change history, records. Get it?

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Email David at he must increase.org david@hemisincrease.org. which of the churches Ephesus Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira Sardis, Philadelphia later say which of those seven churches closed its doors first?

That's the question that I'm asking you. If you think you know, I'm going to tell you the answers. Not much question about it. The answer is very specific. But let me say this.

In these seven churches, there's some people that see these seven churches as seven church periods. You might not have heard this. It has to do with dispensationalism. Some people believe that these churches represent seven different church ages.

Okay, got me. All right. I want to explain that without defending it or without attacking it. What people see is Ephesus is what they call the apostolic Church.

It started with the establishment of the church and ran to about 300 ad. The next is the martyr church, which is Smyrna. And they. No negatives against them. They were putting up with a lot of stuff.

And they see that as going from basically 100 to 300 ad, along with the apostolic Church. Then they call the next season, the next period, the compromising church, because the next church did some comp compromising.

Then some people call that next stage a thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church, which is Thyatira. And then finally they say that the reformation church was the 15 hundreds and 17 hundreds.

The revival church is: 1700

The big issue that I would have with this particular thinking is there's nowhere that indicates in the letter that these seven churches are church periods. It just says they're seven churches. Now, here's what I want you to catch, because this is where newer or new understandings really help.

Listen to this evaluation of the seven churches as a teaching to you personally. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira Sardis. Philadelphia, Laodicea. The first lesson is this, don't lose your love for God's truth or God's people.

That's lesson one. Don't lose your love for God's truth or his people. Number two, remain faithful in the face of tribulation and poverty.

So if we have stuff that happens, and I'm going to just talking about. Because everybody says, well, this will happen, then, mark.

Obese will happen, the rapture will happen first, and this will happen, and this will happen. This is what the, what Smyrna has encouraged to do. Remain faithful in the face of tribulation and poverty. That's lesson number two.

Lesson number three, pergamos, resist Satan's influences, even to death, if necessary. Hmm. Number four, Thyatira, resist false teaching. Number five, remain zealous, impure in your conduct.

Number six, persevere and walk through the doors that God opens. And number seven, don't become lukewarm about God's way of life.

What I like about the way this breaks down versus a dispensational approach is I can use this application right now in my Christianity. I'm not supposed to lose my love for the Lord. Church one, remain faithful in the face of tribulation. Church two, resist Satan's influence.

Church three, resist false teaching. Church four, remain zealous and pure before the Lord. Church five, persevere and walk through open doors. Church six, don't become lukewarm.

Church seven, I can use those. I need to walk my life in such a way as not to lose my love for God, for his truth, or for his people.

I need to remain faithful in tribulation and poverty and not be a whiner. I don't like it. Okay, that doesn't matter. I need to resist Satan's influence. We've been saying this scripture every day this whole week.

Submit yourself, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee. We're supposed to resist Satan's influence.

And he's got a lot of influence through the world, through direct temptation and against our flesh. The next thing is to resist false teaching. What's false teaching?

Any church that promotes that God doesn't know how to create a man or a woman is a false church. Period. There's nothing you don't have to worry about. It's like that's what it says, it's so obvious. Remain zealous and pure in conduct.

Keep moving forward to be christlike is what that's about. Persevere and walk through the doors that God opens. God still opens doors for people. Did you know that? He opens doors for you, for me, for all of us.

You know what? You gotta keep going and walk through those open opportunities, because the Lord is wanting his people to what our DNA. Always be ready to serve.

And then the last thing is the church. Don't become lukewarm. Don't let Christianity become a part of your americanism. You're supposed to be a Christian first.

And for anybody who says you're supposed to be an American first, that's absolutely blasphemy. If anything comes before the Lord in your relationship with the Lord, you're not worthy of the Lord. According to Jesus.

Now, he's either the messiah or a liar or a lunatic pick, but he's very specific on how that should go. So these seven churches represent these seven principles more than anything else. These are act.

They were active then, they were active now, and they'll be active in the future. Don't lose your love for God's truth, God or his people. Never lose your love for the Lord.

If you lose your love for the Lord, everything you do is religion. The next. Remain faithful in the face of tribulation and poverty. No, we don't know how it's going to break down, but it doesn't matter.

If we really believe the Lord is with us, why aren't we walking that way? Why are we telling God he's doing a lousy job by complaining about what he's doing? He knows what he's doing.

The number three one is the one I think, that we miss a lot, and that's to resist Satan's influence.

People don't recognize it's Satan because when a temptation comes, it doesn't come with a red suit saying, temptation time, temptation time, temptation time. If the devil works by stealth, then you and I need to be aware that things that he does are hidden, and we need to be in tune with the Lord.

We're supposed to resist false teaching. Well, where do you get good teaching? I don't know. It's called the Bibli. That's the book for me. I stand by faith on the word of God. It's the biblio.

God created the universe. The dude can write a book. And yes, the 10,000 Old Testament, New Testament references to God being male is what he wanted.

So people don't like it tough. Remain zealous and pure in conduct. Just keep moving forward. Don't, oh, I failed in that one. I give up. No, you don't give. You keep going.

Philadelphia church, walk through the open doors. I love this one because this calls for faith. If God opens a door for you, get through the door, walk through it. You think, well, what if I'm wrong?

God knows you're trying. I think one of the things that I was praying today, and I told the Lord, I said, lord, I'm really trying to do my best in this one thing.

And then I stopped after I said that, and I said, okay, I'm sorry. I know you know that I'm doing the best that I know how at this point, if I need to do better, or I can do better, help me.

And so instead of just me defending myself by saying I'm doing the best I can, I'm pulling it back and going, I know you know this because the Lord knows each thing you go through and how you get through it. And then don't be lukewarm, because Christianity cannot be an add on. Okay.

I don't know if you're aware this or not, but if you get some kind of plan somewhere or some kind of subscription or something, if you use Fubo or any of those other things, you can do these add ons, $5, $10. It's the same thing for Amazon or anything else. I can add this or I can add this cable and all the other stuff. Add on. Add on.

Christianity cannot be the add on. It's got to be the core. And everything else we do is the add on because we seek first the kingdom of God. Okay, now back to the trivia question.

And you're thinking, gosh, you know, Dave, you got these churches, you know, and some of these churches were kind of bad. And that's true. Some of these churches were kind of bad, and some of these churches really kind of good, right?

In fact, the fact that laodicea has no condemnation or no commendations is a. Wow, that's amazing, right? Because it's like they didn't get anything good, right?

Interestingly enough, between Ephesus, smyrna, pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, the church that closed first was Ephesus, the ones that lost their love, that missed the relationship, that turned into a religious entity. Ephesus actually closed in the second century, way ahead of any other church. What does that tell you, man?

You better make the love you have for the Lord. Number one in all things get that cool. All right, we'll take our break and then come back.