Jesus Threatened to Shut This Church Down. Here’s What Went Wrong.

What we're doing right now is we're just going through the 7 churches in the Book of Revelation. You can't get a more direct message from Jesus about the churches post-resurrection than these. God never would have put this in scripture had it not all applied to you and I today. So what are we seeing? We're seeing a church that's really strong in truth, but they lack love. If you have love without truth, you end up being woke, yeah, worldly. All right, it takes both. What I love about these 7 letters is it deals with both the extremes. It's Jesus just saying, these churches, I love you so much, and I want to get you back to center where you hold fast to truth, but you also hold fast to my compassion and love for people. What you find with people that are like the Church of Ephesus is they start majoring on the minors. There are people that literally get on social media and berate my wife because they say you are a female and you're preaching the gospel. One person actually said the greatest of evils is a woman preaching behind a pulpit. Now I want to address this. Hey everybody, welcome to the Jump of Fear podcast. I'm joined by my son Arden. Arden, this is really exciting what we're doing right now.

Yeah, I'm excited to finally jump into these churches.

Yes. Uh, so if you didn't listen to the last podcast, what we're doing right now is we're just going through the 7 churches in the book of Revelation, the 7 churches of Asia Minor. Now, I'm not gonna review everything I said. I am gonna say one quick thing. These are 7 historic Asian churches. These are messages directly, and I can't emphasize this enough, from the mouth of Jesus. In other words, John is taking dictation. I don't know if he's got shorthand. I don't know if Jesus waited for him to write it all down, But these messages came straight from his mouth. They're in red if you have a red-letter edition of the Bible. They have quotation marks around them. I mean, you, you can't get more direct, a more direct message from Jesus about the church's post-resurrection than these. Yeah, think about it. You got all these gospel, all the gospels, and you've got all his words in red, but that's all applying to the people, preparing them for what's coming in the church age. This is the only place you have red letters other than 2 Corinthians 12:9 and one verse in Acts where you'll have red letters. That's something that Paul said. It's more blessed to give than receive. That's in red. And you have 2 Corinthians 12:9 where God said, my grace is sufficient for you, for my, my power is made perfect in your weakness. Those are the only two red letters you're gonna find all through the epistles outside of the gospels. However, almost this entire chapter 2 and chapter 3 of the book of Revelation are red letters. I mean, that just gets my attention. You know? And don't get me wrong, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, Jude, they all wrote under the inspiration and their words should be treated as the word of God. They are scripture. But you know, when Jesus is directly speaking about something to do with the church, I'm just like, really interested, right?

Yeah.

And so there's these 7 historic cities. They're all in Asia Minor. They have a road that connected all of them. John had been living in Ephesus for 30 years. He is exiled on the island of Patmos for 18 months. God gives him the revelation of Jesus Christ. He writes it down. And then when he comes back because he's pardoned 18 months later, he starts delivering these messages. To the bishops, to the overseers, to the leaders of these 7 cities. So I can just see John, man. He's got his— he's got his horses, his— what did they ride on? Donkeys. And he's going on that circular road to these 7 very important cities. I think there was— there was like hundreds of cities in Asia Minor, but these are the prominent ones. And I don't know exactly what it was. And actually our producer researched and told us how many cities there were.

I think there was thousands.

I think there was like 3,000, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah.

So there was, there was a lot of influence that was coming out of this area.

Yes.

And then understanding that and then not only that of what you're saying, but what we even touched on last time is what we believe is that these messages are not just messages to those seven churches, but as you have looked at it in your traveling of 35-plus years, you have seen that this is a message for the capital C church, that this, you see messages within here that are applicable to the Western church, you see messages that are applicable to the churches overseas, to churches in China, churches in Samaria, like Arab churches.

And there are places in America, I bet you can find something that speaks to all, from all 7 of these churches, something that speaks to a church in America.

Yeah, and I meant Syria, not Samaria, as we're going through the other churches, but yes.

But I will tell you, my personal time alone, all 7 have spoken to me.

Yeah. And so we can't just take it as this is okay, yeah, this is good informational, this is historical facts. It's no, this is applicable.

God never would have put this in scripture had it not all applied to you and I today. And that's what we are praying. I was actually praying this morning. I said, Lord, let every single one of the messages to these churches apply to our patrons, that watch the John Bevere podcast and may it change their hearts. I was praying that it would change your heart because my life has been so changed, dramatically changed, going through these letters. And I can remember two specific times where it literally took me a couple hours to get through the seven because of what the Holy Spirit was doing in my heart. So now let's talk about Ephesus. It's the first one. First of all, it is the largest, most renowned city in Asia. As I said last podcast. It's the fourth largest city in the world at that time, only behind Antioch, uh, Alexandria, and Rome. And I said it in reverse order. Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first I want to thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages, so thank you. To become a patron Just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patron. Now let's get back to the show. And so Ephesus was also referred to as the Light of Asia because it was known as the City of Tolerance, a place of enlightenment where ideas were birthed. So it was also home to the renowned Temple of Artemis. Now this was also known as Diana of the Ephesians. Remember Paul got in all this persecution when he was there because they were saying, hey, your preaching is taking away from all of our sales. Yeah. All right. And the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Again, it was known as the gateway into Asia and the light of Asia. It had in its residence the proconsul of Rome. This was the number one leader in the Asia Minor area that represented Rome. Consequently, they had tons of soldiers there. So Ephesus is a happening place. It also was the largest church. I believe it was the largest church in the first century. It literally was huge. And so Timothy was pastoring a megachurch, so to speak, okay? Our key moments is Acts chapter 19. You will see that Paul came across 12 disciples that were baptized in the name of John's baptism. Baptism only. He shared the gospel. They were— they got saved. You will see that this is the place where you have the School of Tyrannus, which is where Paul taught for 2 years. And as a result, the Bible says, so all of Asia heard the word of God, again emphasizing the power, the influence of this city. You've got Acts 19:11-12. Talking about how God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. That was when the handkerchiefs were taken off of him and just the handkerchiefs laid on the sick made them well. Now, Arden, I know we have beautiful patrons out here. I'm gonna tell you, I've seen that happen before. I've had a couple times where the Lord put it in my heart to send a handkerchief. We had a situation, I believe it was somebody had either cancer or another really bad disease, and my heart was so touched and I felt like, hey, just pray over a cloth. And I prayed over it. We sent it to them and a miracle happened. And so I haven't done that in the last couple of decades, but that happened in the beginning of our ministry and I've never forgotten that. So I've actually— I remember people coming up to me in the '90s. I don't know why I haven't done this anymore, but they said, oh my gosh, my, my aunt's in bed. She couldn't even come to this meeting. She lives in the city. And I said, here, I pulled out, I don't know if I had a clean, not a Kleenex, what do you call, handkerchief from inside my, this is back when I wore suits, Arden. I pulled it out and I said, just take it and go lay it on her. I don't know what happened, but this is a scriptural thing.

Can I say this too about that? Because I love your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. 'Cause I do think there's gonna be people that would hear that and be like, no, like, no, God doesn't work that way. And I think we can't put God into a box. We can't put the Holy Spirit into the box. Holy Spirit can work however he wants to. And if we try to put him into this box and we're saying we want to keep him orderly and consistent, then no, you're worshiping whatever the system is or how you've seen it. The Holy Spirit can do whatever it wants to do.

So it says in Acts 19:11-12 that they took handkerchiefs and aprons off of Paul's body to the sick and the diseased, and the sickness and disease left them and evil spirits departed from them. So One thing I do wanna say, if you are feeling that's a little strange, it's scriptural.

It's in scripture, exactly.

Okay, so you have in Acts 19:13-17, you have, that's when the sons of Sceva who were not born again tried to cast a demon out of a man in the name of Paul, excuse me, in the name of Jesus who Paul preaches. And the demon said, I know Paul, I know Jesus, who are you? And the guy that was demon possessed ran them out of town naked. Yeah, I believe it was.

Can I even tell a story on that? I remember when I was in college, there was a kid who was being baptized and a demon manifest. And a lot of those college students didn't know what to do. They spent the entire night just praying over him, trying to cast out this demon. Nothing was happening. And finally, the kid got some relief. And next morning, demon manifest again.. And so they bring them in and we had this one teacher who was just a Spirit-filled woman. I mean, every time you talk to her, it just felt like you were talking to Jesus. She just— the joy of God and then the authority of God and Jesus was so strong on her. And they bring this kid into the main lobby area of the church and she comes walking up and they're like, we've been trying to cast out this demon in Jesus' name and we've been doing it. And she just looks at him. She said, Peter, Here, I know Jesus, I know. Who are you? And then she looks at the kid that's been struggling with his demon for manifesting for the past 24 hours. She looks at him and says, get out of him right now. And immediately he gets completely set free. And she looks at him, she said, bring him to the hospital, and takes him to the hospital because they were not giving him the medication even that he needed. And so just watched as the power and authority that happened there, and seeing even her quoting that and watching as the demon immediately left. Because she carried that authority was just so cool.

I mean, demons are real. And I'll never forget when I was a youth pastor and this girl came up and said, I don't know why, but all I, all I do is lust after guys. And I said, I know why. I mean, that came out of my mouth before I even know what. And I, and I put my hand on her, said, come out of her in Jesus' name. That girl goes straight to the floor, and it took 6 ushers in our church to hold her down. And I heard 4 different male voices speak out of her throat. Well, I didn't realize that her mom was a witch from Bogotá, Colombia, and had put curses on her from childhood. And that girl ended up becoming one of our most on-fire girls in our youth group. I remember when your mother— you know, I told Lisa one time, I said, Lisa, people get into arguments with demons. I said, all you do is you tell that Jesus said, if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. I said, You listen in here, right? And I— and Lisa came home and she goes, John, I remember you telling me this because for some reason when I was a youth pastor, I got known as the guy to bring people to with demons. Yeah, I remember a girl came to our house and she was a witch and she wanted out. Yeah. And your mom and I prayed for her and we just said, we command in Jesus' name, come out of her. And you know what, Arden? She got free. Her face lit up, right? And she said, I went to church after church and the elders would put oil on me. And she said, I heard the demons laughing. And she said, but when you and your wife spoke, they left. So I remember I said, Lisa, you have to know that God has given you authority in my name. Jesus said, yeah, not, not in John Bevere's name. Yeah, you'll cast out, you will cast out demons. Yeah. And so these, these ladies were having this woman in this room. It was a church service and this woman was like manifesting. And they came to Lisa and Lisa walked back and she said, John, I remembered what you said. She said, I walked up to that woman, said, come out of her in Jesus' name, and walked out. And the ladies were like, what are you doing? And she said, like 5 minutes later, they all came out and said, she's free. Yeah. She said, yeah, you were arguing with them. I told it to come out. Yeah. And so you see this. That the demons actually said, "Paul, I know." They don't just say, "Jesus, I know." So the question you have to ask is, is your name known in hell? They knew Paul, but they didn't know these 7 sons of Sceva. I mean, wow, this is powerful, right? Then you've got Acts 19:18-20 records how many who practice magic and the occult, so Ouija boards, that would be today. That would be all these other things kids do, right? They brought their books together and burned them openly, and the value of the books was 50,000 pieces of silver. Well, why? You got this temple of Artemis there. You've got all this occultic stuff going on, and people are hearing the gospel, and they're going, you know what, we're destroying that stuff. And I'm gonna tell you something. You got Ouija boards in your house, you got occultic symbols in your house, you've got other things that demonic in your house, get burned. Rid of them, destroy them, throw them in the garbage. Well, I went to India and I paid $500 for that. I don't care. Is that worth having demons in your house? You say, but I'm a Christian, it's sanctified. Let me ask you something. Why would I want something that's dedicated to a god in my house if I am a believer? And that's what happened with these people. 50,000 pieces of silver. They brought it and they destroyed it. And you know, I have watched people that have destroyed things. I remember, I remember your mother was walking through a house one time with the wife, and the wife was like, oh my gosh, we're having this happen. My kids are screaming at night, they're having nightmares. And my wife walks through the house and she, she's in, in, in the closet and she goes, what's in that box up there? And they go up in that box and there's, there's, there's something that's glorifying to the devil. They destroyed it and all the nightmares stopped. Yeah, I mean, so get rid of it. Only have things that glorify God in your house. Okay, enough said. Acts 19:21-41 records the riot that took place in Ephesus because this silversmith named Demetrius, his livelihood and the other silversmiths were— their livelihood was threatened because Paul's getting so many people saved. And that's what's going to be happening here again. I really believe it. People are gonna be destroying valuable things because it is not glorifying to God and it's actually demonically inspired. There was a disciple named Apollos who was one of the first in Ephesus to be converted to Christianity. Now Apollos was very powerful. If you remember Paul writing to the Corinthian church, he said, "I planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the increase." So Apollos got saved and was led to Jesus right there in Ephesus. And the Apostle John, of course, would end up living there on the outskirts of Ephesus with Mary, the mother of Jesus, 'cause we remember when Jesus is on the cross, he said, "Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother." He entrusted his mother into the hands of John. In 1 Timothy 1:3, Paul writes, "As I urged you when I left Macedonia, remain in Ephesus, that you charge some that they teach no other doctrine." You know, part of our responsibility as believers is to make sure false teachings, false doctrines are not being preached. And I'm talking about false teachings and false doctrines that attack our core basic tenets of the faith. Okay, there are outskirts things. I mean, you've got women that wear a head covering nowadays in churches, and then they get upset because women in our other churches don't wear head coverings. Wait a minute, that is not a basic foundational tenet of the faith. Paul is talking about, hey Timothy, get rid of people that are attacking, undermining the, the foundational truths of Jesus Christ. So in all of these 7 letters, Arden, you're going to see a pattern. All right. And I like to say there's 7 patterns. Number 1, the church is identified by Jesus. Number 2, Jesus gives a description of himself. I think that's so cool. Number 3, he says this is the present condition of the church. Number 4, he praises the church's strengths. Number 5, he exposes their faults. Number 6, he corrects— he gives corrective action to fix the faults. And number 7, he gives the promise attached to those who would heed his instructions to do the correction. So let's go right into it. We have in Revelation chapter 2, verses 1 through 7, the letter from Jesus to the Ephesus church. Verse 1: Write this letter to the angel— remember, the bishop, the leader, the messenger— of the church of Ephesus. This is a message from the one who holds the 7 stars in his right hand, the one who walks among 7 golden lampstands. Of course, the stars would be his bishops, his leaders. The lampstands are the actual churches we talked about at the end of last podcast. All right, I'm going to spend a little time here. I know all the things you do. Stop right there. I— he does not say to this church, I know what you believe. Yeah. Now we are going to see this with 6 of the 7 churches. He says, "I know your works," or he says, "I know all the things you do," depending upon the translation that you're reading.

This translation says, "I know your deeds." Your deeds.

So deeds, works, I know what you do. I wanna make this abundantly clear. Jesus is not looking at what you believe. He's looking more at what you do. Now, I will tell you this because what you do reflects what you believe. The Bible says, "Show me your faith without your works." Show me your faith without your doing, and I'll show you my faith by my doing. When we have faith that has no doing attached to it, it's not real faith. As the body is dead without the spirit, so even those who say they have faith but have not corresponding actions. In other words, if I am continually berating people, gossiping, if I am offended and refuse to forgive somebody, I am somebody who is having sex with just anybody I feel attracted to. You can tell me you're a Christian till you're blue in the face because even James writes and says, hey, the demons say they believe and they even tremble. In other words, the demons believe God more than you do because they actually tremble. So words without corresponding actions mean that I really don't have true faith. Yeah. Let me just give you another example. In other words, works are the evidence of our faith. I'm gonna give you another example. I can have an outlet and I can say there is power in that outlet, but if I take brand new blow dryers, 4 or 5 blow dryers, and I plug them all into that outlet and none of them work, I'm gonna go, you know what, you can tell me there's power in that outlet all day long, but these blow dryers aren't working. And then I take a knife and stick the knife into the outlet and nothing happens, you're not doing my funeral 3 days later. You could tell me there's power in that outlet.

Please don't do that.

I won't do it. Yeah, don't do it.

Don't do it.

You can tell me till you're blue in the face there's power in the outlet. There's not. And this is what the New Testament teaches. And unfortunately, in the Western church, we're not teaching this. That your faith is not real faith unless there is life change.

Okay?

Even in prisons, I've seen people with life changes. More than I have seen in some churches in America.

So which, which, just in making it clear, is we're not saying is that you have to do the deeds to get your faith that gets your salvation. No, that's not at all backwards. It's backwards completely.

It's correct.

It's the evidence. It's that, as you say, I believe, like, Jesus, I'm giving you my life. I believe that you are my Lord and Savior, master of my life. But if then you accept that real revelation for your life and then just continue to keep doing everything the exact same as what you were doing, you really didn't believe.

You really didn't submit your heart to him. You just said it. You mentally said it. Oh, I'm American, I should be a Christian.

I don't want to. Now, I do want to address something, because I think there's people that they say that, and they're like, God, I give you the Lordship over my life, but then they don't know what that means. And then they go on a journey of discovery that actually takes place, of understanding like, okay, I give you the Lord of my life. I don't know that means I shouldn't be sleeping with people, but I might 2 weeks from now or 2 months now, my pastor might say, oh my gosh, you're not supposed to be doing that. My heart is— oh my goodness.

Yes. Like, I believe you immediately make the change. Yes. Yeah.

And just understanding it's the shifting that takes place.

So, so we can have somebody who's truly, truly saved and they really don't know it's wrong to live together. Exactly. All right. And they could be doing it for months and all of a sudden, like you said, They see it in the Bible. Yeah. They hear their pastor say it and they go, well, I made the decision 3 months ago, Jesus is the Lord of my life. Yeah. Then either I need to move out or we need to get married.

Yeah. Which is part of the process, obviously, of community is people who you get involved with in terms of they understand, hey, this is in your life. We want to help you see, get set free from that. And it's just making that decision. Okay, God, whatever you say is best for me, I'm doing it. And as you discover those things, you're just saying, nope, They're out of my life. I didn't realize this. This— God, you're the Lord of my life, not this. Like, this is getting out of my life immediately and walking on that, that journey. Because I think some people are like, well, they're on a journey, but they use that as a journey thing. Like, they're on a journey, but they've been on a journey for 5 years. Like, when is it that that journey is actually going to end? Then there's actually people that are on a journey. They don't know. They don't know. And they're just slowly discovering. Correct. Their heart, though, is pure.

But even those people, you'll see a change in their the way they treat people. Yeah. Oh yeah. Let me tell you, when God puts his nature on the inside of you, you immediately change in areas. There is some kind of outward change, and I've seen it with the most darkest and worldliest of people that get saved. You're like, all of a sudden they have joy, they have this, this, this kindness about them all of a sudden. And but yet they're still on that journey, as you, so to speak, as you say.

And I love it too, because I think what you see is if the authentic conversion happens and then the infilling of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit is then going to start convicting you. So they might not even have to have their pastor say what you're doing is wrong. They might do it where they're normally like, before I used to do this and I felt nothing, but now I'm doing it and I feel just this stern conviction that's happening in my heart. I feel this.

I've had so many people tell me that.

Oh my goodness.

I don't want that. Yeah, I don't want that. You know, this is a guy I remember, this guy picks me up. And he goes, yeah, man, I got saved. And, and I kept, I kept, I kept smoking pot. I kept taking drugs. And he said, every time I take it, I'd be like, yuck. And then one day I heard the Lord say to me, stop taking that. He said, well, then I found it in the Bible even after that. But I heard the Lord tell me, stop taking. Yeah, he said, I stopped. Yeah. See, and that's the difference. You know, when Jesus is the Lord of your life, it doesn't matter what I read in the Bible. And what society does, society says it's quite normal to live together before you make the decision to get married. But my Bible says it's a sin.

Encourage, yeah, 'cause they're like, you'll better understand your marriage if you live together.

And you're like, oh, so he's really not the Lord of your life. You're the Lord of your life and you're using him to be the Lord of your life to get your blessing and your trip to heaven. The person who truly receives Jesus, when they see something in the word, when something's revealed, they go, I'm done with that. I'm done. Okay, I know all the things you do. So I wanna make this really crystal clear. Jesus is looking at all these churches, what they do, not what they believe. I have seen your hard work, your patient endurance. I know that you don't tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me, Jesus, without quitting. So let's just stop here. I wrote down this report card like this is a crazy, amazing report card. Number 1, they work hard for the kingdom. They're quite active in church. In outreaches and most likely financially supporting those outreaches. Okay, that, that's big. Number 2, they're patient. They consistently bear up under difficult circumstances. Number 3, they don't tolerate evil people. They are not unequally yoked, creating friendship and bonds with unbelievers. Number 4, they don't fall for self-appointed preachers, and there's a lot of them. On YouTube. Okay. They don't fall— they recognize it. Hey, the authority of God's not on that person to speak. Okay. We're all called to speak, but whether we're all— we're not all called to have public platforms. Yeah. Okay. So they, they've suffered and refused to quit. Now, if Jesus comes along and gives Messenger International a report card like this as a leader, as pastor of Messenger International, I'm going to be quite pleased. But now listen to the next statement. But I have this complaint against you. All right, this is Jesus talking. Words are in red. This is the NLT. You don't love me or each other as you did at first. Okay, wow. Then the next statement. Look how far you've fallen. Okay, now hold on a minute here. We've got a church who obviously hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which we'll talk about later, which the Nicolaitans said, hey, don't worry about how you live. You can live however you want to. Don't worry. You got grace that covers you. You can jump in bed with anybody you want to, any sex you want to. Don't worry about it. You're covered.

Okay.

They hated that. Yeah. So obviously they loved the word of God. They, they, they exposed evil people, right? So what are we seeing? We're seeing a church that's really strong in truth. Yeah, but they lack love. All right. If you look at Ephesians 4:15, it says, but speaking the truth in love. Yeah. If you have truth without love, you end up into being dogmatic and legalistic. If you have love without truth, you end up being woke.

Yeah. Worldly.

Yeah. All right. It takes both. This church obviously has lost its love for God and people, but even though it's still strictly adhering to Bible— wow— this is something that we see with a segment of the church. There are people out there, I'm telling you what, they'll, they'll call you on the carpet if you're a woman and you're preaching. Yeah, they'll call you on the carpet if you're not doing your church service a perfect way. They'll call you on the carpet. They're so, so dogmatic about the minor points. Now, this was the Pharisees. Jesus said, you strain out a gnat and you swallow a camel. He said, you'll pay your tithes of your garden herbs, he said, but you've refused the weightier matters—justice, faith, and mercy. There's about 800 scriptures in the Bible about justice, faith, and mercy. I think on tithing there's about under there's about 40-some, and they're not just talking about tithing, they're talking about garden herbs. And Jesus said, you should have done these things. Yeah, but he said you've neglected the weightier matters. So what you find with people that are like the Church of Ephesus is they start majoring on the minors. So now let's just take an example, because this one's near and dear to me. There are people that literally get on social media and berate my wife because they say you are a female and you're preaching the gospel. One person actually said, "The greatest of evils is a woman preaching behind a pulpit." Now I wanna address this. If you'll remember in the gospels, these Pharisees, the ones that were dogmatic with truth, you know what they do? They would watch Jesus to see if he would fail in one little area. Well, they're walking through the grain fields on Sabbath and his disciples are plucking the grains, right? And these guys, oh, they call him on the carpet. Do you see this? They're working on the Sabbath. So what does Jesus do? He pulls out David and says, I'm going to use David as an example. Don't you remember David went into the temple, he and his men, and took the showbread, which was not lawful for anybody but the priests, the sons of Aaron, to eat? And they took that bread and they ate it. And he used that to justify what his disciples were doing. All right. Now, Let's flip over to Paul. Paul's in jail, he's writing the letter to the Philippians, and he makes a statement. He said, there are people that are preaching out of pure motives. He said, but there are people that are preaching to add to my chains. They think if they preach, I'm gonna get more severely beaten in this prison that I'm in. And he said, whether they're preaching out of pure motives or whether they're preaching to add chains to my affliction, I rejoice because Jesus is preached. Now these people take these three scriptures out of context that Paul writes to Greek churches about women not standing, you know, not having authority, not teaching. There's 3 of them. One's in Timothy, 2 are in Corinthians. All right. Timothy's pastoring Ephesus. The Corinthians is Corinth, Greece. And in Greek, they kind of elevated the women. They had these goddesses. Okay. So he tells them, he says, hey, I do this, but they ignore the fact that God says, I'll pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters would preach my divine messages. They ignore the fact that Philip had 4 daughters that prophesied. They ignored the fact that God says in Psalm 65, I think it is 11, God proclaimed the word, great was the host of women that proclaimed it. So they ignore that.

Now, who is it? And then Paul had a direct study that was a woman too. That was—

she had— he had Phoebe, who was— he listed her among the apostles in Romans chapter 16. Yeah.

Okay.

Which, I mean, a lot of people like —But I don't even want to go there because some people say that's not a woman's name. I want to address this. Let me keep—

Well, can I say this? Because a lot of people ignore the fact that he was also writing that because a lot of the women were not educated back then. They weren't able to receive the education that they needed to, and so he did not want someone who was not educated being preaching and talking about the gospel. So taking—

But let's take the pure words. I want to get back because I want to point something out. So here's Jesus addressing these guys that are critical, right? Here's Paul. It says whether they're preaching. Now think about this. They are preaching to add to my chains. He said whether they're doing it out of pure motives or false motives, I rejoice because Christ is being preached. Yeah. Okay. Now, do you think Paul would have gotten bent out of shape that a woman was preaching a gospel in a gathering? No. If he says, praise God, these people with impure motives are preaching, and praise God the gospel's being preached, I don't think he would've been bent outta shape over a woman. What's going on here? We have got people that started majoring in the minors. I wanna ask you a question. If you've bought into this lie about women can't speak, When you first got saved, would you have been all bent out of shape if it was a woman sharing the gospel with you? Would you have been bent out of shape when you first got saved if a woman was standing behind a pulpit preaching the gospel to you? Why are you bent out of shape now? I need you to ask yourself that question. Have you left your first love? Are you now more dogmatic? Are you now more concerned about what the letter of the New Testament says rather than the fact that you love passionately God and people? Do you have that attitude that Paul had whether the gospel is being preached from impure motives or pure motives, praise God the gospel is being preached. I want you to be honest with yourself because if you are not, you could be this Ephesus church. You could be this person that is so hung up over the letter of the New Testament that you have lost your first love. Because Jesus says to this church, look how far you have fallen. Turn back to me. And do the works you did at first. Wait a minute, do the works you did at first? These guys have already— they're already abundant with works, Jesus said. Their original works were out of their pure love for Jesus. Their works now are out of, hey, we're in our club, we've got our rules, and we've developed our rules from the New Testament. These people are dogmatic. They have lost the compassion of God in their heart for people. And it's a serious matter because Jesus said, look how far you've fallen. Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don't repent of this lack of love, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. Now remember, lampstand deals with what? It deals with their influence. If you look, there are churches that have lost their influence. I can tell you churches back in the '80s not probably very few of us would know these churches. They were the cutting-edge churches in the United States. I name them now. People don't even know who they were. Why? Their lampstand was removed. Their influence was removed. Now, it may not have been because they were against women preachers like I just talked, but what happened is they did something because it's not just the Ephesus church, but they did something. That they got out of, out from underneath the heart of God. He probably sent people to him to address them like he sent John to address this church in Ephesus. They didn't listen. They didn't repent. They lost their influence. I can tell you there are churches in the last 10 years that have lost their influence. Something happened with the leader. The church doesn't have the influence it used to have. Yeah, they were doing something in the church that wasn't really what— it was going against the basic tenets of the faith. They lost their influence.

So can I ask this question? Because when you're saying concerned by the letter of the law, when he's talking about that, what in kind of correlation to what you see with people that are preaching, yes, out of wrong motives of what he's even saying, but preaching maybe obviously false teaching and preaching that is more self-focused around themselves and building their own platform. How do you feel like that kind of fits into that mold as what we've even seen and what we've even talked against and about those things?

Like, how do you feel like that? So what these guys were doing, they were preaching the gospel but doing it out of impure motives. So they weren't perverting the gospel. Yeah, they were preaching the gospel, but out of trying to afflict Paul worse, out of jealousy towards Paul.

So they were still preaching the gospel, right? They weren't twisting the gospel to fit their own desires, fit their own needs, or push their own agenda.

That is something we're going to deal with in the other church, because that's when you swing the pendulum. And now I'm using the gospel for self-gain, self-purposes. This is a serious matter as well. But you've got these two extremes, and what I love about these seven letters is it deals with both the extremes. It's Jesus just saying to these churches, I love you so much, and I wanna get you back to center, where you hold fast to truth, but you also hold fast to my compassion and love for people. So it's not just for him, because Jesus said, you've done it to the least of these, my brothers, you've done it to me. Somebody may say, Jesus said, you've left your first love, talking about just Jesus. No, he's talking about his people too, because you've done it to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it to me. So the way I love you is the way I love Jesus, aren't you? The way I love that person on the street that maybe doesn't smell really nice is the way I love Jesus. The way I treat the lady who's ringing up my groceries in the grocery store is the way I love Jesus, because you've done to the least of these, you've done it to me. This church lost its love but held fast to resisting evil, exposing evil, getting rid of evil people. They were almost like the people that we see today that are criticizing preachers. They build podcasts to criticize people by name. They don't really have love in their hearts anymore, Arden. They're just so strict about their law of the New Testament, they've lost their compassion for people. They're spending their energies and times trying to expose names rather than bringing people to Jesus. Rather than bringing people to Jesus. Would they have done that when they were saved the first week? They never would have done it because they had a passionate love for Jesus and they told everybody about him. And so I want to encourage you, please, Examine. You know, God made this statement through the prophet Jeremiah. "Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, 'Thus says the Lord, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal.'" And you know, listen to this, the kindness and the love of your betrothal. If you look at Paul, Paul the Apostle said, "I betrothed you." to one, one, and that is Jesus Christ. In other words, you're the bride, he's the groom. You got to think about it. I mean, apply it to when you first started dating your girlfriend, or you first started dating your boyfriend, or maybe when you were first engaged. Did you leave your first love? And this is what Jesus is saying to this church: protect that love. And so I want to just take the time right now. If you say, John and Arden, I, I actually can see how I've drifted from my first love. You know what's easy is the word repent. Repent just means I'm going to have a change of heart, a change of mind. I'm going to return back to my passionate love for Jesus. That's all you need to do. And just say this prayer. I want to lead you in a prayer. Just say, Lord God, God, please forgive me. I've left my first love. I made it more about the letter that I created out of the New Testament than I did the heart behind the words of the New Testament. I ask that you would shed abroad your love in my heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that I would love even the least of these, my brothers and sisters, passionately the way you love them, Jesus. I ask this in Jesus' name. If you prayed that prayer and meant it, that's all it takes. This happened with me. I'm not condemning. It actually happened. There was a time period around the turn of the 21st century, back in the year 2000, 2001, and I'll never forget, I cried out in my basement for about 4 months, God, please put love in my heart for your people. And I remember a pastor looked at me after, it was about 2003, a couple years afterwards, he said, John, your message is still strong, but it seems like you love the people so much more deeply. He was right. I was so dogmatic. I was so strong that I was lacking that love for the people. And people can tell when you love them and people can tell when you're trying to be a legalist. So I wanna encourage you right now, keep praying and just saying, God, just pour out, Pour out your love in my heart for your people every single morning when you go to prayer. Hey, we love you. Until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast, and I wanna say this again. Here's the new book, "You Are Called." You can get it on Amazon. I do wanna say we talk about both holy love and holy fear in this book called "The Awe of God." If you've not read this book, I've written 24 books. This is my life message. We get so many testimonies of how this book is changing people's lives. Go to Amazon. They usually have a big sale on it. Get it delivered to your house and start walking through this book. It's really easy. 42 chapters, 42 days. Each chapter takes about 8 minutes, but it really does something in you for that day. We love you. That's it. God bless you. See you on the next podcast.