A BIBLE BELIEVER'S COMMENTARY OF REVELATION Chapter 2

(Transcribed from tapes of a class taught by Dr. Peter S. Ruckman at Pensacola
Bible Institute, Pensacola, Florida)

     All right, back to Revelation 2. Now, up on this chart here I've drawn
you the seven church ages. You want to look at it when you find the time and
are hanging around the building. It goes up to Ephesus, then it comes up
Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. My dates aren't
absolutely for certain; they're general; they're approximate. But there are
some of them you can be pretty sure of. That Pergamos is 325 a.d., sure as the
world. And that Philadelphia is 1500, and that Laodicea is 1900. And the rest
of them, there may be some difference, and there may be a little overlap on
those things. But they're in there close.

     And the Church Age ends in apostasy with a lukewarm church bragging about
its property. "We've got so much money, we've got so many bonds, we've got so
many stocks, we've got so many buildings, we're worth so much, we have such-
and-such a ministry," and boasting, saying, "I'm rich," and that thing is
poor, and wretched, and miserable, and naked, and blind.

     All right, Revelation 2:1: 2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus
write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand,
who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; 2 I know thy works,
and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are
evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and
hast found them liars: 3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's
sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 4 Nevertheless I have [somewhat]
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 5 Remember therefore from
whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will
come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place,
except thou repent. 6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of
the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

     "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus." The Scofield or somebody made
you think the "angel" was the pastor for some reason. I don't know where he
got that from. Makes for a unique situation. In Laodicea, the "pastor" is
spewed out of God's mouth--which makes you wonder what part of Christ was he
in! That's a wild exposition, man!

     I take the word "angel" to be an "appearance." Every time I find in the
Bible, an angel is an appearance. They're messengers, but they're not always
messengers. Sometimes they're killers. That angel that came down to see
Senacherib had no message at all; he had a sword and killed him. That angel
that smote Herod had no message for him; he just knocked him and swatted him
right out of the pulpit. That angel that came to help Christ had no message;
he came to strengthen Him in suffering. An angel may be a messenger, but when
you limit it to "messenger," like every commentary does, you've got some more
heresy. Now, if every angel in the Bible is an appearance, you can put an
appearance there, and it'll read right any place you put it. An "angel of the
Lord" is an appearance of the Lord. "The angel of the Lord" is the appearance
of the Lord. Every angel in the Bible is an appearance.

     Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; he appears as an
angel of light.

     So, I read that every local church down here on this earth has an
appearance up in Heaven. I'd go further than that. I'd say, you have an
appearance up in Heaven; your children do; and this country does. When we get
into Daniel, you'll find that the United States has a representative up in the
United Nations up in Heaven, and so does Israel. And they're represented by
angels. Israel's angel is an archangel--Michael.

     All right, chapter 2, verse 1: "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus
write." Here's the first church: "These things saith he that holdeth the seven
stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks;  I know thy works." The Lord has some kind of an amazing
television hookup up in glory where, whatever goes on down here is reproduced
up there, and yet without sin, because it's in a place where there's absolute
holiness. He has some way of checking everything at one time, or any time he
wants to monitor it or pick it up, without anything getting defiled up there.
I don't understand it, but I know it's so.

     "I know thy works." Christ said, "No man hath ascended into heaven, but
the Son of man, which is in heaven." He is in both places at the same time.
Let's be more practical. Are you seated in Heaven right now? See what I mean?
Aren't you a sinner? See what I mean? I mean, there's some what that,
whatever's down here, is represented exactly up there, and yet up there it
comes in so the Lord knows what the thing is, and it doesn't defile anything
up there. It'll be interesting to see that rigged, won't it?

     All right, verse 2: "I know thy works." The Lord knows your works. "And
your labour." Now, works can be mental works, or spiritual works, or prayer--
but labor is just plain, old, everyday labor. Cutting down trees and digging
sewage ditches and carrying bricks--and labor. That's labor. "I know thy
works." Ever hear of organized labor? That's disorganized labor. "I know thy
works, and thy labour, and thy patience." Now, that's a good bunch, you know
that? They worked for the Lord, and they labored for the Lord, and they had
patience.

     "And how thou canst not bear them which are evil." Now, there's
something. There's a church being commended for being intolerant. You wouldn't
catch that bunch these days, would you? When was the last time you heard,
"You're a great work down there because of some people you can't stand"? Isn't
it amazing how different the Lord looks at it, and how people look at it?

     You have a sign out in front of your church, and it says, "Come, be with
us. We can't stand folks that aren't right!" That fellow down in Tallahassee,
Brother Sutek, had a sign up in front of his church about the queers, and the
paper down there said to the effect that, you know, he was driving people away
from his church by putting that sign out there. Good! That's excellent! The
Lord commend him for that! He couldn't stand them which are evil.

     "Thou canst not bear them which are evil." The Lord will pat you on the
back when you're intolerant sometimes. Now, notice that doesn't match anything
taught in the public schools during the last 20 years. So it must be right!

     "And how thou canst not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried
them." Put 'em to the test. "Which say they are apostles, and are not, and
hast found them..." Oh, heavens to Betsy! What a word to say! "And hast found
them..." Oh, my goodness, Lord! You don't have a sweet spirit. "And hast found
them..." Oh, my goodness! He doesn't reflect the spirit of his Saviour, does
he? "And hast found them liars." Now, do you know anybody who professes to
have apostolic signs? You know anybody who professes to have apostolic gifts?
Why don't you try 'em out?

     I tried them out. I told a guy, "OK, you've got the gift. Show me the
gift. Let's see you talk in tongues--right now."

     "Right now??"

     "Yeah, right now!"

     "Well," he said, "I'm not in the Spirit," you know.

     I said, "If you're not in the Spirit, you're not of Christ, because 'If
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

     Don't you give me this stuff, "I'm not in the Spirit." If you're not in
the Spirit, you're not born again. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

     Of course, you know what they mean. They mean, you know,
"Aalllaagallgoogoogaagaa," that kind of bunch.

     I told one guy, "I thank God I talk in more tongues than you all." And I
threw a bunch of Gallic and Japanese and Spanish and German and French at him,
he didn't know where he was at.

     When I got all through, he said, "But you weren't of the Spirit."

     He meant I didn't put on a show like Johnny Carson!

     You've got a generation of the dumbest clucks that ever fell out of a
henhouse, you know that? You've got a generation of folks that have been
watching TV for so long they actually believe the stuff. And they say, "Well,
I know he isn't right." Yeah, but your response is just like you thought it
was!

     I gave a verse to one of those Maharaja-guru-sheba-hooboo-Moonie-booboos"
downtown one time, and one I gave it to him, he said, "Well, you may quote the
Scripture, but it isn't in your heart, or you wouldn't say it like that." He
said, "It's just on your lips. You haven't learned it in your heart."

     What I told that punk was, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust
of your father, ye will do. He was a liar from the beginning, and abode not in
the truth. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, because he is the
father of it." Now, I didn't say it right, see? Now, if I had said, "Ye...are
of your father...the devil, and the...lust of your father...you will do. He
was a...murderer from the beginning...and abode not in the truth," then that
silly saphead would have thought I'd memorized it!

     You've got a crew, boy!

     "Evil communications corrupt good manners." After you hang around that
stuff and hang around that stuff, it'll twist you, man, even when you don't
know it's twisting you.

     You get the idea. "Use this hair tonic," you know, "before women go crazy
over you," you know. Or, "Smoke this pipe," you know, "and have women trailing
around your backyard," you know, that kind of business.

     You say, "I know it isn't so." Yeah, but you act like it's so, some of
you! I mean, it's amazing the approach when somebody says, "Get this new
bible. This new version. New! New! It's new! The new Edsel! The new Chevrolet!
The new look! The new Clairol! Girls! It does everything!" That's all that
stuff is! It's just a soap-selling gimmick for suckers, brother!

     All right, he said, "You tried them, and you found them liars." I
remember one time, I stopped a couple of my young people down the street. When
I went by there and stopped, they were dealing with two Mormons. They had
little old bicycles, you know, and silly little hats, you know, and peddle
around on. And they were out there, you know, and talking to a couple of my
young people, and a couple of my young people were having a pretty hard time.
They were about 19 or 20 years old, and hadn't had a lot of experience, and
those two Mormons were giving them a hard time. I pulled up alongside and just
stopped and listened awhile. Kind of eased up, you know, and listened up to
around 10 minutes to see how things were going. And those Mormons were saying
they were apostles, and they were from Melchizedek and the priesthood and all
this jazz, you know. And after awhile my young people got kind of bogged down,
so I moved down and said, "Pardon me. I couldn't help but overhear this
conversation." I said, "I understand you fellows say you're apostles."

     They said, "Yes."

     I said, "Of course, then, you have the apostolic signs and wonders."

     They said, "What?"

     I said, "Second Corinthians 12:12 says, 'Truly the signs of an apostle
were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty
deeds.'" I said, "Surely you fellows have the apostolic signs the apostles had
to do miracles."

     "Yes! Yes! We have them."

     And I said to the first fellow--he was about 21 years old--I said, "Do me
a miracle."

     And he said, "What?"

     I said, "Do me a miracle. You got the gift, let's see it right now."

     He said, "Right now?"

     I said, "Yeah, right now!"

     And he turned red in the face, and he said, "Well, I wouldn't bother to
do one for you!"

     I'll tell you, man, there is more phony stuff going on in Christianity
than any rock I've ever been on in my life. I want to run off and hide
sometimes, man. I'll tell you--all that crazy, screwed-up, deluded stuff. Like
I said, man, if I had known what I know about people before I got saved, I
never would have got saved. Boy, before I was saved, if I had known about
these Mormons and Campbellites, and all this Catholic stuff, and Billy Graham,
and John R. Rice slapping Bob Jones, and him slapping him back, you know, and
Christians, you know, messing up this word of God, and going around
"Haallllaabblaalbblaaablla," man, I'd have joined the Foreign Legion.

     Revelation 2:3: "And hast borne, and hast patience." He said it twice!
They labored with patience, and they bore trouble and sorrow with patience.
Good church! "And for my name's sake." They had the right motive. "Hast
laboured." They labored, and had the right motive for laboring. "And hast not
fainted." Now, that's a good outfit, you know that? And he said, "Be not weary
in well doing." Well, they weren't. And they didn't get tired.

     A lady said to her colored maid, "Don't you do anything fast?"

     She said, "Yes'm, I gets tired fast!"

     "And hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee." What
is it? "Because thou hast left thy first love." Now, that's the only thing He
had against that early church, was they left their first love. And that's the
only thing He has against many a Christian. Now, you married couples, you know
how hard it is to keep the first love. You know how hard that is. You have to
work at it. When you work at it, then it doesn't seem like it was before,
because before you didn't have to work at it. But, like the colored fellow
said. He and his wife were arguing, and she said, "Before you married me, I
was so sweet you could eat me up!"

     And he said, "I done lost my appetite!"

     And the sad fact of the matter is that most couples, before they're
married, the young lady can hardly keep the young man from kissing her. He
just wants to neck all the time.

     Then, after they're married about a year, it gets less and less frequent.
After two or three years, less and less frequent. Finally, she has to remind
him once in awhile about it. You know what I mean? No amen, ladies? No amen,
ladies? I thought I'd get an "amen" on that one! Surely!

     It's hard to do, because before your married, the circumstances are
likely artificial; before you meet, you do the best you can to fix up, so
you'll make the best possible impression. And then, after that, you know, you
don't have time, a lot of time.

     They told one lady one time, "Get your husband's first love back, and do
what you did before you got married."

     She had been going around, you know, with lightning rods in her hair, and
all this and that, and trailing around the house in an old house coat that
looks like a second-hand camouflage net, and taking care of about four or five
children, a dog and a cat between her legs. And so, that night, when the
husband came home, he found her all dressed in an evening gown, all dolled up
and perfume and everything, and make everything just perfect. And he took one
look at her and said, "And where do you think you're going?"

     Now, that's the trouble. See, you get in that place where you find the
person you married is a person. And that's the most disillusioning thing about
marriage. I mean, you could have sworn they were just a woman, but they
weren't. They were a person. And when you married him, you thought he was a
man. Then you found he was not a man, but an actual person. You know, people.
Real weird! And you found out they like things, and don't like things, and
have habits of doing things, and have habits of not doing things, and have
ways of doing things you don't like, and you have ways of doing things they
don't like. And a way of fixing the plate and fixing the cup and taking the
cup or not taking the cup, or putting the cup up or putting the cup back. And
pretty soon it begins to grind, you know, and pretty soon the first love is
gone.

     Like I said, a man has three things in life--what is it?--friendship,
courtship, battleship. Like this fellow who was getting married; the preacher
was talking about binding together, and he said he's going to join them
together in the "martial life." He meant "marital". It came out "martial".
"Martial" life.

     And so, what you do is, you have to work at that, you see? And you have
to make yourself say sweet things to your wife when you feel like saying other
things to her. And a lot of it has to do with just swallowing a lot of pride,
and eating crow, and just saying a lot of things that pass through your mind
that you just don't say. One of the best ways to keep a marriage together is,
just don't say everything that passes through your mind. A lot of the things
that pass through your mind are of the devil, you know that? Keep your mouth
shut.

     You say, "Well, I do that, but then my wife doesn't."

     Well, then, sometimes the wife needs to work at it, getting her first
love back. I didn't mean to get into a message here tonight, but I've got
these notes here that I picked up out of this Bible. Now, I'll admit it's
awful hard for a woman to sit around in front of the TV all day long and watch
these strong, handsome, virile young men all dressed up in suits and singing
love songs, then jumping over cliffs to rescue fair maidens and riding horses,
and then have the mister come in with a beer gut hanging out, you know, kick
off his shoes and throw his dirty socks someplace, and plop down in front of
the TV set. Must get pretty rough, you know--it gets pretty rough.

     But what you have to do is, you have to work at it. Now, He wouldn't have
said, "I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love," if
you couldn't get back to it. You know, I think that's got a lot to do with the
Christian. I think that's got a lot to do with the word of God. I think, right
after you got saved, you were hungry for that word, and you loved it. And, as
the years went by, it's getting kind of cold to you. I think that's got a lot
to do with it. When I first got saved, if someone asked me to crawl on my
hands and knees a mile on broken glass to tell the Lord I loved Him, I'd a
done it, or I'd a tried to do it. And I find, through the years, that first
love gets dim, gets cold. I mean, you love Him, but it isn't like that. It
isn't a rage with you; it isn't a passion with you any more. You preach about
Calvary, and you know about it, and you can draw; I've drawn it hundreds of
times. But it's just not as real as it was when you first got saved. You need
to get back there.

     The old song says, "Jesus, keep me near the cross--there a precious
fountain, free to all, a healing stream, flows from Calv'ry's mountain. Near
the cross, near the cross." Got to stay in there close!

     "Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy
first love.  Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen." That isn't
falling into hell, or falling from grace, that's falling from first love. "And
repent, and do the first works." All right, look at verse 2. "I know thy
works." They're all right. "And labour," verse 3. But "do the first works"!
There's something about the first thing that you do for the Lord right after
you're saved is a lot better than what you do later. The first works.

     "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy
candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." The same way about
marriage; you go back and do the first things. You used to open the door for
your wife all the time; start opening the door for her again. You say, "Ahhh,
wahhh, you know, I mean, she shows she's tough enough to turn the car over, so
I won't open the door for her!" Women have a way of ruining their testimonies
with their husbands. I don't know what it is. Women have a way of, when they
get married, of just starting revealing one thing after another about
themselves, until finally the fellow says, "Awww, rats!" you know. About to
slam the door in their face!

     That's why there's many a man who doesn't pray with his wife, a Christian
man, although he should. But he doesn't pray with his wife, because he thinks
it doesn't do any good, and he figures if she prays, the prayer isn't getting
higher than the ceiling. That's right! And so it comes to women getting
careless about it too. Now, if you want all the little nice things done for
you a lady ought to have done for you, then go back and think about the times
in your home when you've not acted like a lady in the last five years. Or
talked like a lady. I mean, before you got married, is that the way it was? I
mean, before you got married, was it, "OK, fix your own breakfast!"

     You never got a husband that way, sister! And you know it! You know it.

     Let's see, verse 5: "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and
repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and
will remove thy candlestick." Well, the candlestick is the church. Look at
1:20: "And the seven candlesticks are the seven churches." So He says to that
church at Ephesus, that body of believers, "I'm going to take that church out
of there, and have done away with it, if you don't repent." The Lord will take
a local assembly when it's not right and remove it. Shut it up. Boy, I've seen
Him do it more than once, brother! More than twice.

     "Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick
out of his place." I had a bunch of church operators one time thought they had
all the answers, and I guess they thought they were a little bit more holy
than Brother Ruckman, and they could handle things a little bit better than he
could handle them. And so I just dumped it in their lamp and said, "OK, ride
with it!" They rode with it three years, and they went from 40 families to 30
to 20 to 15 to 10 to eight and finally sold the place. The Lord took that
candlestick and just went--poof!--out there.

     Over there in Mobile, Alabama, you can find church after church after
church that used to burn like a candlestick. A candle's supposed to be set in
a stick, brother--not under a bushel, basket, or a bed. And those lights have
gone out. The Southern Baptists in the last ten years have closed up and shut
down over 700 churches in the last ten years. Seven hundred churches! The Lord
removed the candlestick!

     Verse 6: "But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, which I also hate." That's good! You hate! That's good. Glad you
can hate! You ever get where you can't hate, you're in bad shape. See that?

     Boy, doesn't that run contrary to what you get in the newspaper, radio,
and television? I'll bet you haven't heard that over WPFC for a long time,
have you? I'll bet you haven't heard that over the Christian FM station. "One
thing I like about you is you hate."

     "But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which
I also hate." All right, then, there are some works of somebody you're
supposed to hate. And, if you don't hate those works of that bunch, then
you're not in tune with God. If you're godly, then you're like the Lord. And
if you're like the Lord, then there are some things that you hate, and you
hate what He hates, and He hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

     Now, that word "Nicolaitan," as I've said before, is a Greek compound
word, and that thing means "to rule the laity," or "to run the common people."
And the "laos" is that--the common people. And, hence, this: L-A-O-S--as in
Vietnam. That's where the word is from. And, from that, this: L-A-I-T-Y--for
common man. And the other one is "nicao," an alpha or epsilon contract verb,
it's probably "niceo," and that thing can be translated "N-I-K-E-O," nike-o,
nick-o, Nicolaitans.

     This is developing in the early church. And I've got a date down there on
Ephesus of what? What's that date at the end of that yellow mark? 150? All
right, at 150 a.d., there's already coming up in the church the doctrine that
there should be a "caste system" in the church, and one bunch of people should
run the other bunch of people. That caste system is first mentioned by Origen,
where Origen says it's perfectly all right to call a pastor a "priest," and
since they had high priests in the Old Testament, it would be possible also to
call a religious leader a "high priest."

     That begins with Origen. Then you have Cyprian and Papias. When you're
studying church history, we'll get into this stuff. Cyprian and Papias both
say that the bishop has the authority of Christ, and you can only preach in
the presence of the bishop; when you preach in the presence of the bishop,
you're preaching in the presence of Christ. And, a little bit later, when we
get to "much marriage," the Nicolaitans show up again, and begin to wear funny
little suits--so you'll know they're not laity--and funny little hats--so
you'll know they're not laity--and funny little collars--so you'll know
they're not laity--and then funny little haircuts--so you'll know they're not
laity. Pretty soon, everything is funny! They become monsters because they
live in mon-a-steries!

     Verse 6: "But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Close: "He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches;" plural. Promise: "To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of
the paradise of God." That promise, as it stands, will not doctrinally fit
into the Church Age. "To him that overcometh"; we've already overcome, 1 John
4:4, 1 John 5:4, "will I give to eat of the tree of life;" you don't have to
eat it; you have your eternal life already. "Which is in the midst of the
paradise of God." So, doctrinally, we probably have an application here to a
local church in the Tribulation, if you put the thing down doctrinally.

     All right, we'll close there, and take about five minutes for questions.

     QUESTION: In verse 4, what do you teach is their first love?

     ANSWER: I'd have to say in the passage that it's love for the Lord, but
manifest by love for His word. That's the closest thing to Him down here you
can get your hands on.

     QUESTION: What is it a reference to in verse 2--the works, "thy labour,
and thy patience"?

     ANSWER: Well, He said, "do the first works." But, doing works, whether
they're good or bad, does not necessarily mean there's any love there, because
your motive in doing them would determine whether or not you left your first
love, whether you do the right works or the wrong works. And that's what makes
first love so hard. You hear a woman, "Well, you did it," you know, "but you
didn't do it the way you used to do it," see, "or say it the way you used to
say it." A couple is talking: "You never tell me you love me; you never tell
me you love me any more."

     "Awww, I love you; shut up!"

     Well, you know, when you said, "I love you," you've said it, haven't you?
But what a way to say it! I mean, before you were married, you didn't say
that: "I love you. Shut up!"

     QUESTION: How can the object of the historical application be different
from the object of the doctrinal application? Shouldn't they be the same?

     ANSWER: No. For example, whoever wrote the Book of Hebrews wrote that
thing some time before the middle of the Book of Acts, and that thing is
written to Hebrews. Historically, that is aimed at Hebrews in the Church Age.
And yet there are things in that Book that you couldn't apply doctrinally to
any Hebrew in the Church Age, and there are things in that Book you couldn't
even apply to a Christian in the Church Age.

     QUESTION: What was that about John being brought forward in time?

     ANSWER: I teach that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day that
John was brought up through the Spirit to the Great Tribulation, right before
the Day of the Lord begins at Armageddon. And when He tells John to write what
he has seen, he's writing the Church Age. When He tells him to write what he's
looking at, he's looking at the Tribulation. And when He writes what's going
to take place, he writes about the Millennium, and the new heaven and the new
earth.

     I do that because, in the Book of Revelation, Heaven opens only two
times: Revelation 4 and Revelation 19. And Revelation 4 comes at the end of
the Church Age, and Revelation 19 comes at the end of the Tribulation.

     Well, now, I don't want to talk you out of it, but then again, I don't
want to talk you into it. In plainer words, I don't want to discourage you
from building a big work, or trying to build a big work. But what you say,
there's a lot of truth in it. The way this thing's going and has gone and will
continue to go, you may live to see the day when there won't be any churches
at all in this country running 1,000 in Sunday school, including the ones that
are there right now. I mean, the handwriting on the wall is pretty rough. It's
pretty rough.

     I don't want to discourage you from starting something and getting
something going. I mean, "Take no thought for the morrow. Sufficient for
today," you know. I mean, go as far as the Lord wants you to go. But if the
thing crashes around your hand, then don't be surprised. And if you suddenly
find yourself going downtown, and there's a howling mob down there roaming
those streets with clubs, breaking into windows and trying to get food, and
find yourself standing on top of a car with people touching at your feet,
trying to shoot you, you just remember, that's exactly what John Wesley went
through in England, and he saved England from revolution and didn't build any
church building. And the Lord fed him until he was 83 years old.

     So don't throw up your hands and quit. There may be better and bigger
ministries than building churches with 10,000 in Sunday school. You may get a
chance to have a Sunday school with 30,000 in a mob!

     Up north, it's much more likely than it is down south. You heard about
these big works like Beauchamp Vick and Rawlings and Hyles and Falwell, but,
brother, I'll tell you, the average church up there is much smaller than the
average church down here. Now, down here, this South is filled with Southern
Baptist churches running 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900--thousands of them. You
get in Pennsylvania, there's a Brethren church, and a Grace Brethren church,
and a Reformed church, and a Grace church, and a Bible church, and an Open
Door church. I mean, in Pennsylvania, brother, in there. In Pennsylvania, when
you get up North, there are about 100,000 of these little old things with
about, oh, 50 to 150 people in them. And that's largely due to the fact that
that country is owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Church. You don't
build terrific, big things up there.

     I've always thought that if you ever get over 200 members, you're going
to have to have an associate. And, if you ever get over 400 members, you're
going to have more people than you can control. I've always thought that, and
I've always thought, my philosophy has always been, I would rather train 12
men--this school began with 12 men. I'd rather train 12 men, where two of them
turned out to be genuine soldiers of the cross, than train 100 of them that
all turned out to be like the last 20,000 have been in this country.

     And I don't intend to ever pastor a big church--anywhere. I don't ever
intend to build one. And, if I wanted to build one, I know exactly what to do.
I know just what to do, got all the stuff to lay out, just start and go.

     And some of you fellows, when you get out, the Lord's going to lead you
to build big churches, and you go ahead and build them. I can't speak for you;
you can't speak for me.

     I'll tell you, brethren, you've got to have a balance. Now, I know they
say, "Ruckman's unbalanced," you see, but that's because they're unbalanced
themselves. But you'd be surprised how balanced I am when it comes to seeing
the need for a certain ministry here, and a certain one here, and a certain
one here, and a certain one here. Now, I see it, see? I mean, you never catch
me wasting five minutes trying to tear down Hyles' work and Hyles-Anderson in
Indiana, see? I wouldn't waste my time doing it. Now, he does some things I
don't approve of. But a big ol' town like Chicago, he does a lot of good. He
does a lot of good and reaches a lot of people.

     You never heard me say a whole lot about Billy Graham. I get to talking
once in a while and drop something kind of funny, but you never heard me come
in here and waste 30 minutes of your time talking about the "Jehoshaphat of
our generation," and the compromising with the neo-evangelicals. I don't do
it, you know why? Billy Graham does a lot of good. Billy Graham reaches a lot
of people you'd never reach a day in your life. And the question you ask,
"Well, if I could reach them, I'd do a better job," you don't know whether
you'd do a better job or not. In order to get up there where he is, you might
have to sell out a lot worse than he sold out. See? You never know about those
things.

     You take a thing like, you take this other station here, this Swaggart
station. I think, frankly, Swaggart just stinks, really. I mean, as an
individual, he just stinks to high Heaven. I think he's about the sorriest
individual; I'd walk right by him looking for a man. But, you know something?
I'm going to tell you something now. Now, you drive around in that car and
just pretend that you're up to 70 or 80 years old, and all your friends are
dead and most of your loved ones, and you're hearing that stuff. You know that
stuff will minister to you? It'll minister to you. You drive along there at
night, and you just buried one of your boys or girls, eight or nine years old,
and you think God has let you down and is forsaking you. And you get to
hearing that sweet, soft, smooth stuff, some of that nice music, and it'll do
something for you, see? I mean, you've got to be balanced, man, see?

     And you take a servicemen's center. Suppose they don't baptize them in
water. I mean, "Brother Ruckman's supposed to be a Baptist. Some of his men
are going out and setting up servicemen's centers and rescue mission work.
They don't believe in immersion, boy--baptism by immersion," you know, and
"blah-blah-blah-blah."

     Well, did you know at servicemen's centers and rescue missions, they can
reach people that these churches never reach? And a lot of these churches
wouldn't dirty their hands with them anyway, did you know that? A lot of these
churches you get going, they bring a bus load of kids, and they have a special
section for the kids, that won't interfere with the congregation. You have one
church in this town that's got this big ol' bus stuff, and they had a bunch of
blue-bloods running that place, you know, a bunch of church operators. And the
first day, that bunch of mangy, smelly kids came in there with spit balls and
blow gum, you know, and no shoes. Some of them would smell like a goat left
out in the pasture for a year. They brought them, and they suddenly decided
they'd better meet over in another building, you know. Now, you've got to have
a broadened thing in that. You take here in town, you've got the biggest
Christian school in the world here in this town, counting all the grades, you
know, grade and junior high school. Now, those people over there, they spend
their time having roast Ruckman. Don't think they don't; they do. You don't
believe it? Just run over there and bring up my name, and watch the magic
flash going like a ticker-tape.

     Now, you take those people over there, they would like to see us close
tonight. And, when I was pastor of the church nextdoor, they did everything
they could to shut it down. They told their young ladies, "If you date any of
the young men over there, we'll ship you! If you join that church over there,
you'll lose your job." That fine bunch of broad-minded, tolerant, sweet,
dedicated, wonderful Christian people!

     Now, some of you send your kids to that school over there. Now, that
school is one of the best schools in the country to keep your kids from
colored kids. Amen! Number two, that school is one of the best schools in the
country to keep your kids from getting a lot of communistic and socialistic
slop they get in the public schools. Number three, that school is one of the
best schools in the country to make your child behave, and smack 'em if they
don't behave, and it'll go a long ways toward making them a better citizen in
your house, you see? Number four, they've got good teachers over there who'll
make 'em work, and most of 'em are pretty bright kids. Now, see, I see all of
that. I understand that.

     Now, they're a bunch of narrow-minded Pharisaic bigots--they don't see
that! But that's because they don't have any grace. I got the grace! I got it,
man! I got it! I mean, I appreciate 'em, see? I know they're reaching a lot of
people and doing a lot of good. More power to 'em! Amen! Amen!

     And that's the difference between a Christian who has grace and one who
doesn't!

     OK, we'll take a break.

     All right, Revelation chapter 2. We're in the message to the seven
churches, which are historically churches in Asia Minor, which spiritually
have some reference to the condition of any Christian group that needs rebuke
or exhortation, and doctrinally it's a picture of the local churches in the
Tribulation, or the entire course of the Church Age laid out typically by
local congregations. And we finish here with the church at Ephesus, the first
early church.

     And the admonition says in verse 5, "Remember therefore from whence thou
art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou
repent." So the church is rebuked, even though it's a good church; they're
told to remember, and to repent, or He'll remove them. "But this thou hast,
that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." The word
means to conquer the laity or to rule the laity, and it means that the early
Apostolic church or shortly thereafter, around the time of John, there were
people in the church trying to draw a distinction between the common, ordinary
Christian, and the bishops, presbyters, deacons and elders, and putting them
in a special class by themselves as superior to the average Christian. Now,
they're not superior. They have a calling, and their job may entail certain
responsibilities that are heavier than the average Christian, and they may be
required to do certain things the average Christian doesn't have to put on
them because of their job. But that doesn't mean they're superior. In the Body
of Christ, there is no such thing as "superiority." In the Body of Christ, the
head can't say, "I have no need of the hand," and the hand can't say, "I have
no need of the feet," and the feet cannot say, "I have no need of the eye."
Paul says, "Don't be wise in your own conceits. Condescend to men of low
estate."

     In the Bible, you have the Holy Spirit; I have the Holy Spirit; you're in
Christ; I'm in Christ; you're part of Christ; I'm part of Christ; we're all in
Christ! There's no superiority to it.

     And Paul tried to point this out to some people one time. Turn to 1
Corinthians. They had a terrible time learning this. First Corinthians chapter
1, verse 12. First Corinthians 1:12: "Now this I say, that every one of you
saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ."
They're all split up, arguing about which one was which. One said they
followed this one; one said they followed that one. Verse 10: "Now I beseech
you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the
same thing, and [that] there be no divisions among you; but [that] ye be
perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Chapter
3, verse 4: "For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of
Apollos; are ye not carnal?  Who then is Paul, and who [is] Apollos"? Nobody.
They're just "ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every
man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.  So then
neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that
giveth the increase." Now, see that thing? Paul says, "I'm nothing, and
Apollos is nothing, so quit fighting about it!

     And so the business about there being different classifications, and the
matter of being better in God's sight is not true. And don't ever get into
that kind of a fix. Now, he says, "The elders that labour in doctrine are
worthy of honor." If a man labors in doctrine, especially those that labor in
doctrine, are worthy of double honor. Now, that may be true. But that doesn't
mean they're better than anybody else. You gotta get that thing! I mean they
may receive more honor because of their position or their responsibilities,
but that doesn't mean they're any better. It just means that's where God put
'em.

     Now, if you don't get that thing right, I'll tell you what you're going
to do after awhile. You're going to get proud, and puffed up, and conceited,
and soak up this stuff that Rice and all these idiots put out, and believe all
this publicity you put out about yourself, and forget that there are people
over in the old folks' home like Mrs. Sauer who have been flat on their back
for thirty years and have gone through more suffering in five than you'll go
through in thirty, and they live just as good a life as you do, and probably a
sight better!

     Now, don't you forget that!

     Sometimes the Christian celebrities get kind of puffed up about their
work. Well, if you get a good work and a good place, praise God for it, and if
you get honor and respect and recognition for it, OK. But don't kid yourself!
Don't kid yourself.

     All right, verse 6: "Thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans." They're
not to run or conquer the laity. Now, they're to rule, but their rule is
spiritual. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. We'll talk about this more when we get
into the local church and go into some detail in it, about how much authority
a pastor has, and what kind of authority it is. But in 1 Peter chapter 5,
notice this. First Peter chapter 5, verse 2: "Feed the flock of God which is
among you, taking the oversight [thereof], not by constraint, but willingly;
not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;  Neither as being lords over
[God's] heritage." The Nicolaitan doctrine is lording over the heritage of
God.

     Now, it's most noticeable in the Roman Catholic Church. In the Roman
Catholic Church, the guy gets up there and calls himself "Father" and dresses
like "Mother," and has this dizzy thing on top of his head, and has these
beads and cross and chains, and the nuns with their whips and knots hanging
around their belt, and their crosses, and rat on their beads, and tax exempt.
All the people in the congregation pay taxes; they don't pay taxes. If you
want to get out of taxes, don't become a Baptist preacher; become a Catholic
priest. And they don't pay taxes. And they walk around there, that silly ass
with his fingers up in the air with a ring on 'em they let the Kennedys kiss,
and kiss his feet, and walk around there with a gold crown on his head, and
letting people bow down and call him "Holy Father."

     You know what that is? That's lording it over the flock! And that's
exactly what the Lord told you not to do! Be an example to the flock. How's
that for an example? Gold crown, $10,000 ring, gave Lyndon Johnson a $12,000
gold statue when he got off the plane. Some example, bud! Rolled down a carpet
for him at the plane, when he came off the plane. Is that the example you're
to follow? That's the lowly Galilean, is it? Going to Calvary, with a cross on
His back, stepping out there on a purple carpet, with a $10,000 diamond ring.
Some example, brother!

     I'll tell you, if I was unsaved, I'd make a good Communist, you know
that? That's right, brother! If I was unsaved, I'd lean that way, boy!

     "The deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Oh, now, Lord, you
don't do that! The Lord said, "I hate 'em! I hate the deeds of the
Nicolaitans! Hate 'em!"

     "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit sayeth unto the
churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which
is in the midst of the paradise of God." Now, there's your doctrinal problem
with these seven churches. None of you have to eat of the tree of life. The
tree of life was forbidden to Adam when God ran out, Genesis 2, and if he ate
it he would live forever. You are going to live forever anyway. Why do you
have to fool with a tree? If you trusted Christ, you have eternal life. Now,
this is for an overcomer, and you've already overcome.

     Mr. Danger, read for us aloud 1 John chapter 4, verse 4, and Mr.
Fleidenstein, read verse aloud 1 John chapter 5, verse 4, on overcoming. First
John 4:4 and 1 John 5:4. First John 4:4: "Ye are of God, little children, and
have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in
the world." Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them--past
tense. Because "greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."

     First John 5:4: "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and
this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith. Who is he
that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of
God?" Now, you see that? When you believe in Jesus Christ, you were born
again. When you were born again, you overcame.

     Now, who are these people parading up and down the streets, stealing
television sets and busting into stores, singing, "We shall overcome?" Why, if
you're saved, you've already overcome, 1 John chapter 4, verse 4; 1 John
chapter 5, verse 4.

     So, we probably have a doctrinal application here to somebody up in the
Tribulation. 8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things
saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; 9 I know thy
works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and [I know] the
blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but [are] the
synagogue of Satan. 10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer:
behold, the devil shall cast [some] of you into prison, that ye may be tried;
and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I
will give thee a crown of life. 11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the
second death.

     Verse 8: "Unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write." Smyrna means
myrrh, and that has to do with death and dying. Now, that's one of the
embalming fluids brought to embalm Jesus Christ with. And that's one of the
gifts brought to him by one of the wise men.

     When I was a little boy going to grade school, and the Christmas pageant
came around every year, I always had to play one of the three wise men. And I
had to play one of the three wise men because my voice was too deep. When I
was ten or eleven or twelve years old, I talked like a bullfrog, and so they
always gave me the third wise man. And I had to get up there and sing, "Myrrh
is mine"--a little boy about ten to twelve years old--"Myrrh is mine, it's
bitter perfume; breathes a life of gathering gloom; sorrowing, sighing,
bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb." That might have psychic
effects on you, you know that?

     All right, verse 8: "Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the
last, which was dead, and is alive;  I know thy works." That's how he began
with Ephesus. "I know your works." Isn't that something to know that God knows
your works? The Bible says every man will receive a reward according to his
works; the Bible says his works will be tried in the fire. "I know thy works,
and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich)." See that stuck in there?
Sometimes, when you think you're poor, you're rich, and sometimes, when you
think you're rich, you're broke!

     Look at Revelation 3, verse 17, and look at a church that said it was
rich and wasn't. Now, here's a church that says, "I'm poor. I haven't got
nuthin'. I don't have what I need. I need this. I need a parking lot. I need
some more bathrooms. I need a place for these folks to meet." And that Lord
said, "Man, you don't know it, but you're rich!" Now, here's a church that
says, "I'm rich," and the Lord says, "You don't know it, man, but you're
broke!"

     Revelation 3:17: "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with
goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." You know, the Lord doesn't look at
things like we look at them all the time, you know that? Sometimes He has a
very peculiar way of looking at things. And sometimes, when you think you're
poor, you're rich. And sometimes, when you think you're rich, you're poor.
It's possible to get that thing messed up.

     Verse 9: "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art
rich)." The poorer you get down here doing right, the richer you get up there.
The Lord has got His computer going, and is just making a deposit every week.
And they say, "I am poor," and the Lord says, "Doesn't look that way up here!"
The Lord's ringing off that cash register; Deposit, $2,000; Deposit, $8,000;
Deposit, $20,000; Deposit, $100,000.

     Now, you say, "I'm poor." And the Lord says to the angel, "What's his
account number? 2679-243? How much has he got in his account? $150,000."
You're rich!

     "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and
[I know] the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but [are]
the synagogue of Satan." Now, that thing isn't identified, but whoever it is,
they're claiming to be Jews. Now, the only people I know who claim to be Jews
and have gotten rid of the real Jew and claim the spiritual Jew is all there
is, are amillennialists and postmillennialists. I don't know where that puts
Dr. A.T. Robertson and J. Gresham Machen and Benjamin Warfield, but it
wouldn't put them in too good of a boat.

     Sammy Davis Jr.? He's an ecumenical movement, that bird! They've got a
joke about that, if I could remember it. What was that thing about Elizabeth
Taylor joining one church, and Sammy Davis joining another church, and some
other fellow joined another church. And the Catholics have got a prostitute,
and the Protestants have got something else, and the Jews have got a one-eyed
neighbor, or something like that. One of those bad racial jokes--I won't tell
it.

     Verse 9: "Which say they are Jews." Oh, Sammy Davis got on a bus in
Montgomery, Alabama, was that it? And they told him, "Go back, and sit on the
back of the bus; you're a colored man?"

     And he said, "I am not. I'm a Jew!"

     And they said, "OK, get off the bus!"

     Ok, verse 9: "Which say they are Jews, and are not, but [are] the
synagogue of Satan." Now, whatever that thing is, that's an unholy alliance,
and an unholy group. Now, you can identify them in various ways. I've got an
old boy out in California who makes them the Masons. And then I've got another
bunch that says they're the Illuminati. And then I've got another bunch that
says they're the Kazars. And this and that. I don't profess to understand all
that, but I know one thing. I know all people who deny the premillennial
coming of Christ claim all the promises given to the Jews go to them. And they
claim that there is no more physical Jew that God deals with. And that leads
to anti-Semitism. And that's the synagogue of Satan, brother! Satan is anti-
Semitic.

     Verse 10: "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the
devil shall cast [some] of you into prison." Now this time on your calendar is
somewhere between about 100 and 200 a.d., and this is during the ten imperial
persecutions of the Roman emperors, if you put it down in history. "The devil
shall cast [some] of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have
tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee..."
eternal life. Right? Wrong! That's how the Charismatics and holiness read it.
God never told you that if you were faithful unto death, He'd give you eternal
life. He said He'd give you "a crown of life." That's an earned reward.
Eternal life is not an earned reward; eternal life is a gift.

     "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." Have you
overcome? All right, then, you'll not be hurt of the second death. There's the
promise. 12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things
saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; 13 I know thy works and
where thou dwellest, [even] where Satan's seat [is]: and thou holdest fast my
name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas [was]
my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. 14 But I
have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the
doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the
children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit
fornication. 15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the
Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. 16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white
stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he
that receiveth [it].

     "And to the angel of the church in Pergamos." The word means "much
marriage," and that refers to the period around 325 a.d., when the church
settled down in the world with Constantine and became the imperial church, and
Constantine brought in all his reforms. Now, some of you have had Church
History I, and those of you who haven't had it, are having it, and you'll know
all about that Pergamos church in the next couple of weeks.

     That church settles down with the world, it steps out on the Lord, and
hooks up with the world--"much marriage"--and becomes the worldly church of
the emperor, instead of the spiritual church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Constantine, the Roman emperor, consolidates his empire by professing
Christianity, and from here on the bishop of the church is no longer out in
the Colisseum praying with his flock before the lions get him; he's in a gold
basilica with a crown on his head--after this time.

     To be the pastor of an early church before 325 was a rough occupation. He
said, "If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work," he
desires to get his head cut off in those days, if he desires the office of a
bishop. And the bishop in those days would have his pastoral flock meet in the
Colisseum on Sunday morning at 10:00, and then they'd all kneel and pray
before the lions came out and tore them to pieces.

     I saw a cartoon one time out there, and the guy's got a knife and fork
and a napkin around his neck, sharpening the knife. And one of his buddies is
saying, "The most optimistic fellow I've ever seen in all my life! They're
going to eat the lions!"

     The standard joke is, the Colisseum went broke and bankrupt because the
lions were eating up all the profits.

     "And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write." Now this thing here,
the church settles down with the world and becomes the imperial church, and in
come the Easter bunny, Christmas trees, wedding rings, the whole business.
"These things saith he which hath the sword with two edges." The word of God.

     Verse 13; look out for the 13: "I know thy works and where thou dwellest,
[even] where Satan's seat [is]." If that's Constantine, then Satan's seat is
Rome. To term "to speak out of the seat" is called "ex cathedra," which means,
"out of the chair"--"cathedra" meaning "the chair," "the seat"; "ex cathedra,"
from the chair.

     "Even where Satan's seat is." If I were the devil and wanted worship,
there's one place in this earth I'd get to--and it wouldn't be Jerusalem, and
it wouldn't be Moscow, and it wouldn't be Peking, and it wouldn't be
Washington, D.C. It doesn't even pay you to be President these days; they're
flinging so many mudballs at you. The newspaper gets rid of the President just
as soon as he gets elected.

     But if I was the devil and I wanted to be worshipped, I know where I
would come down here. I'd go to Rome.

     "And thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith." There's a
good church! But they still get a rebuke; look at verse 16. Verse 13: "And
thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith; even in those days
wherein Antipas [was] my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan
dwelleth." I don't know who he was; but he's named. Most of the commentaries
say he stands for all the martyrs. Well, I don't know. He's named. And the
Lord said, "He was my faithful martyr," so he must have had one man in mind.
The name of the man is very clear: "Anti" means "against." "Pas" from "Pas,"
"panta," "Pante," "Pantas," "Pantan," your third declension neuters you're
going to get into, means "all." Or "everything."

     This man is against everybody!

     Antipas was against everybody. "Against all." They said to Martin Luther
one time, "You fool, don't you know the whole world is against you?"

     He said, "OK, that's all right, I'm against it!"

     That's "Antipas...my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where
Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there
them that hold the doctrine of Balaam." Now, we're going to have to study
this. The doctrine of Balaam. The Bible speaks of a "doctrine of Balaam," "the
way of Balaam," and something else of Balaam--what is it?--"the error of
Balaam." And that's found here, and in Jude, and in 2 Peter.

     Now, in Jude, is it "the error of Balaam." All right, then, in Peter it's
what? "The way of Balaam." One of those. One of them is in 2 Peter 2, and one
of them is in Jude.

     That Balaam is quite a character. There are three things about him you're
warned against--his way, his doctrine, and his error. Second Peter's "the
way"? OK, then, Jude would be the error. Jude verse 11 is "the error of
Balaam," 2 Peter 2 is "the way of Balaam," and Revelation chapter 2, verse 14
is "the doctrine of Balaam."

     Now, "the error of Balaam" was in trying to curse Israel, and wanting to
curse them. "The way of Balaam" was deceitfulness and treachery, going around
behind God's back to get Him to curse them, which we'll talk about in a
minute. And the "doctrine" is described here.

     Verse 14: "The doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a
stumblingblock before the children of Israel,..." to do two things. Here's the
doctrine: "To eat things sacrificed unto idols." That's mentioned in the
Pauline epistles in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11. "And to commit fornication."
That's a doctrine--to commit fornication. He didn't give advice; that's a
religious doctrine.

     Which means that that particular brand of religion has fornication in it
as part of the worship service; it's part of the religion.

     "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
thing I hate." All right, now let's go back to Balaam, and we'll get ol'
Balaam here back in Numbers chapter 21, and in 22. We'll pick him up in
Numbers 22, verse 9. Now this is the way, the error, and the doctrine of
Balaam. Balaam is said to be in outer darkness in 2 Peter and Jude, he was
lost, without hope and without God, and he's a Spirit-filled prophet that
preaches on both Advents of Christ and believes in the fundamentals--and he's
lost!

     Numbers 22:9: "And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men [are] these
with thee?  And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab,
hath sent unto me, [saying]." Balak and Balaam. And the false god is what?
Baal. Boy, those "B's" are rough, you know that? Baal, Balak, Balaam.
Beelzebub and Belial.

     "What men [are] these with thee?  And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son
of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, [saying],  Behold, [there is] a
people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now,
curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them, and drive them
out." Watch it: "And God said unto Balaam,..." ONE: "Thou shalt not go with
them..." TWO: "Thou shalt not curse the people..." and THREE: "They [are]
blessed." See that three-point outline?

     Verse 13: "And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes
of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go
with you." Is that what God told him? He cut out two-thirds of the message,
didn't he? The Lord said, "Don't go with them. Don't curse them. They're
blessed." And when he passed the message on, he took two-thirds of the sermon,
and cut it right down in thirds, and gave one-third. There's many a man in the
ministry that does it just like that. God says, "Preach this, this, and this,"
and the fellow preaches one-third of it.

     Verse 14: "And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and
said, Balaam refuseth to come with us." Is that what he told them? Is that
what he told them? No, that isn't what he told them. They left the Lord out.
See how the Bible gets revised? It began with three points and got down to one
point, and the Lord got run out of the last point.

     Verse 15: "And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable
than they.  And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son
of Zippor, Let nothing,..." never mind God and the word of God. "Let nothing,
I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me: For I will promote thee unto
very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me." Blank check!
"Come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. And Balaam answered and
said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of
silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or
more." You liar, you just did less! Just because a man is a Spirit-filled
prophet who believes in the fundamentals, that doesn't mean he's honest.

     Verse 19: "Now therefore, I pray you, tarry ye also here this night, that
I may know what the LORD will say unto me more." Why should He say more? Did
Balaam tell them what He told him the first time? You want God to show you
something outside the Book, do you? Have you accepted what He showed you? If
you haven't, you expect more? When God gave you Revelation 22:14, you
corrected it, and "Lord, you made a mistake. It shouldn't be the 'tree of
life'; it ought to be 'wash their robes.'" And change it. Then you come around
and say, "God, show me something else." That's why God never shows them
anything else.

     I didn't mean to get to preaching; I'm going to have to get back to
teaching here, but I'm going to have to be careful. You get going down through
here with this, and how it affects you, and it gets in me, you know, and it
begins to churn, and pretty soon it's like a Sherman tank coming out in the
air.

     Verse 19: "Will say unto me more. And God came unto Balaam at night, and
said unto him,..." watch this; CONDITION: "If the men come to call thee, rise
up, [and] go with them; but..." second condition: "yet the word which I shall
say unto thee, that shalt thou do." He didn't do it the first time. The Lord
said, "But if you go with them this time, you say what I said to say--and
don't you go unless they call you."

     Verse 21: "And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and
went with the princes of Moab." Did they call him? No. He had what you call a
"green lead"--he was anxious to get that money. That's the way of Balaam.
That's the error of Balaam. And that's the reward of unrighteousness.

     And off he goes; now you know the rest of it. The Lord sent an angel
after him, and his donkey saw the angel before he did, and the donkey fell
down, and if it hadn't been for the donkey, he'd a gotten killed. And he
starts kicking that donkey around, and beating that donkey, and that donkey
said, "Did I ever whip you like that?"

     And he says, "No!"

     "Well, you don't have any right to hit me like this."

     And Balaam said, "I would I had a sword; I'd kill you!" What a ludicrous
thing! "I wish I had a sword"--and there was an angel standing in front of him
with a drawn sword!

     And Balaam said, "I wish I had a sword."

     And the angel said, "You want to borrow this one?"

     GASP!

     The guy looks up there, and look at verse 31. Look at verse 31. He had
the sword drawn in his hand, man! It was drawn; it wasn't in the sheath. He
was ready to take that old boy's head off.

     And the Lord said in 32 and 33, "If it hadn't been for your dumb donkey,
you'd be a dead man!"

     And Balaam said, "And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have
sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now
therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again." 35: "Don't go
back. Just say the word that I tell you to say."

     Now, the Scofield note on that is absolutely ridiculous. It said he went
under the "permissive" will of God, and that's why God was angry with him.
Scofield must have been messing with...anybody got a Scofield Bible? Hand it
to me. Scofield note: "In verse 12 the directive will of Jehovah; in verse 20
Jehovah's permissive will. The prophet is now free to go, but knows the true
mind of the Lord about it; the matter is holy, one between Jehovah and his
servant. The permission really constitutes a testing of Balaam. He chose the
path of self-will, and Jehovah could not but gravely disapprove." You're
wrong! He didn't do what God told him to do in regards to the words, brother
Scofield!

     Now, if God ever calls you to preach, you let that be a lesson to you.

     All right, Numbers chapter 23. Numbers chapter 23, he blesses Israel--
three times. Balak gets put out with him, Balak likes to have a fit.

     Numbers 24--he blesses them again. Numbers 24, verse 10: "And Balak's
anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak
said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast
altogether blessed [them] these three times.  Therefore now flee thou to thy
place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the LORD hath
kept thee back from honour." Verse 25: "And Balaam rose up, and went and
returned to his place: and Balak also went his way."

     Then it looked like that was the end of the story--but it wasn't. Come
over here to chapter 31, and look what happens to Balaam. Get Numbers chapter
31, verse 15: "And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
Behold, these caused the children of Israel,..." WATCH IT: "...through the
counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD." 31:8--the last ten
words: "Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword." Now, that thing
in Numbers 31:15 and 16, you didn't know about, when you read Numbers 24.

     Go back to Numbers 25, and look why he said that. Numbers 25:1: "And
Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the
daughters of Moab.  And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their
gods: and the people did eat." And here comes the fornication, verses 6, 7, 8,
and 9. And the Lord kills 24,000 of them--verse 9.

     Now, compare that with 31, verse 16, and that shows you that when, before
Balaam left and went back to his place, he got his check! Now, here's how he
did it. He got through there, and Balak said, "You blessed them three times,
you didn't curse them at all--you can't have the money!"

     Balaam said, "Well, I had to say what God told me to say. He was going to
kill me if I didn't say what He told me to say."

     Balaam was there by constraint--for filthy lucre, not of a ready mind.
And he said, "I had to say what God said, or God would kill me. Is the offer
still good?"

     Balak said, "What do you mean, is the offer still good? You already
blessed them?"

     Balaam said, "But I mean, if I could work out a way--"

     "You just said you couldn't work out a way!"

     "Yeah, but now, is the offer still good? I mean, if I could show you how
it could be done, could I still have the blank check?"

     "Well, yeah, sure, but you done blessed them three times!" He said, "You
couldn't curse them!"

     "Well, that's right, but, I'll tell you what. You do what I tell you to
do, and I won't have to curse them--God will curse them!"

     "Oh? How do you do that?"

     "Well, you let your daughters marry their sons, and you let your sons
marry their daughters and integrate, and have them sign that little sheet of
paper saying they'll raise their children in your church. And when they see
God sees them taking the Second Commandment, and taking it out, and making two
out of the tenth one, and bowing down to those graven images, the Lord will
kill them!"

     And Balak said, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" Wrote out
the check, and gave it to him!

     Now, that's what went on!

     All right, back to Revelation chapter 2. There sure is a lot in that
Bible, isn't there? There sho is a lot in that Bible?

     Revelation chapter 2. Boy, you'll listen to a lot of radio programs
before you'll hear a sermon on that one! Because ol' Balaam prophesied the
First Coming and the Second Coming and the restoration of Israel, and the
premillennial coming of Christ--when the Spirit of God was on him--then went
to hell! Not a very popular subject for preachers to preach about.

     Revelation chapter 2. Let it be a lesson to you if God has called you to
preach. If God has called you to preach, and God gives you a message, you
preach you the whole message! And if it causes you enemies, and it causes you
to lose the church and lose your income, go on and preach it!

     That's what's wrong with Billy Graham. You want to know what's wrong? I
don't say much about him; I love him in the Lord, and thank God for him. But
the thing that's wrong with Billy Graham is what he doesn't say. I never found
a great deal of fault with what he says; I see some of these big headlines,
"Billy Graham Approves of Homosexuals"--that's headline. And then, when you
read down in the fine print, that isn't what he said at all. I've seen the
press try to mess up Billy Graham many a time. It said in Ladies Home Journal,
he said this--and I get the copy and read it. Somebody said he said that in
the Ladies Home Journal. You better watch those birds!

     But I will say this about Billy; there's an awful lot that he should say
that he's not saying. That was Balaam's problem.

     Revelation 2, verse 15: "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of
the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate." Now, the only way you can get
fornication into a worship service is by this reasoning: God is love. Love is
God. You start out that way. "God is the creator. You should reverence God.
Man can create human life. You should reverence human life." Did you ever hear
that one? "Reverence human life"? I'd like to see you find that anywhere in
the Bible? You ought to reverence human life. If your religion is humanism,
and you got rid of God, and God is just an energy or force like the sun, that
creates, then the highest thing in the world is the physical force or energy
that produces physical life. Therefore, since man himself is capable of that,
the highest object of worship that's visible outside of the sun is man.
Therefore, the act of procreation is the highest act of reverence to human
life, and creating physical life. Therefore, the act of procreation is an act
of worship.

     Got it?

     And then you put in Vestal Virgins on this side of the Parthenon and
marry them all to the god, and you put in the eunuchs on this side and marry
them to God, and give them all gold rings, and they don't ever get married,
because they're married to the god--and they perform for the customers.

     Now, that's how it's done, man. Likea dat-a!

     And, if you read your Old Testament back in 1 and 2 Kings, you'll find
that the sodomites are there, the perverts and the queers are there, to take
care of the customers who are perverts. And the Lord said they wove hangings
for the groves, where the sodomites were.

     How many of you ever read that in your Bible? Let me see your hand. The
rest of you haven't been reading your Bible lately? First and 2 Kings. First
and 2 Chronicles. Don't you worry about the Bible's false modesty; the Bible
covers the subject, whatever it is.

     All right, verse 16: "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and
will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." That's the word. "He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna,..." Don't know what it is.
"And will give him a white stone,..." I don't know what that is. "And in the
stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth [it]."
I don't know what that is. I've got 22 commentaries at home, and they don't
know either! And you get all kinds of things with that; the white stone is for
acquittal, and all this and that. But if you find out what that thing is, I'd
like to know, because I haven't been able to locate it, exactly what it is.

     I know I've got a new name written down in glory, and it's mine, I know
it's mine. And it's probably written in Hebrew, because the language of Heaven
is Hebrew, so I probably wouldn't know it if I saw it, but I'll probably know
it when I get up there. Christ had a name in His thigh written that no man
knew accept He Himself. And my name might be in Hebrew in a Bible; I might be
reading it every time I read through the Bible, and not know it when I see it.

     Of course, it might not be that difficult. "Peter" is a Hebrew word, and
I read that coming through there.

     Wouldn't it be something, if the Lord knew the names of everybody who was
saved, and had them all written down in Hebrew in the Old Testament, and the
number of each person by that name that was in the book? That would be a
strange thing--hold that, we just won't talk about that.

     All right, let's take a little time for questions.

     QUESTION: What about "the ten days"?

     ANSWER: About the 10 days. The number ten is a Gentile number, and the 10
days here could picture the ten imperial persecutions by the Roman emperors.
And all I know is it's a Gentile number that indicates persecution from
Gentiles.

     QUESTION: Will Balaam be coming back?

     ANSWER: Well, I've often thought what you're thinking about, but I never
could crystallize it. Because one of the strange things about the Bible is the
second coming of everybody. I mean, you ever stop to think about this? How
many believe in the Second Coming of Christ? Let me see your hands. How many
of you believe in the second coming of Elijah? Let me see your hands. How many
of you believe in the second coming of Moses? Let me see your hands.

     Now, you've got three of them already. So that thing about Judas and
Balaam is not as far-stretched as it looks. There has to be a second coming of
Judas; he comes up from the pit. So the question comes, if he comes up from
the pit as the Antichrist, and he has a false prophet--which he does,
Revelation chapter 13--could this be ol' Balaam coming back?

     But, it gets mad after awhile. I'll show you why it gets mad. Turn to
Matthew 10; I'll show you how to quit when you're winning. Matthew 10; it gets
mad after awhile. Boy, if you're not careful, you'll have the whole Old
Testament resurrected at the Rapture and going into Palestine!

     Matthew chapter 10, verse 23, and here's the crowning capstone; you've
got all the apostles coming back again. Matthew chapter 10, verse 23; now,
they don't discuss these things in theological seminars. This is Bible!
Matthew 10:23. It's still the wildest Book ever written, brother! This is the
wildest thing you ever got your hands on. Matthew 10:23--context, Tribulation.
How do you know? Look at the end of verse 22. All right, verse 23: "But when
they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto
you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be
come." Why, listen. They went over all the cities of Israel, and Samaria, and
Judaea, and the end of the earth--and He didn't come back. Is He lying? The
Lord Jesus wouldn't lie, would He? He said, "You will not have gone over the
cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." It certainly wasn't the first
time they preached; could it be the second time?

     You know what John said one time? The Lord gave John a book, and He said,
"Eat it." And He said, "You're going to prophesy again, before many nations
and kings." Now, I wouldn't advise you folks to get too deep in that. And if
you leave here and take a church, for goodness' sake, the first morning, don't
get up and talk about the second coming of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John!
You'll blow the whole thing, man!

     QUESTION: What's this thing about "hangings for the groves"? Please
explain.

     ANSWER: They've got trees planted up--groves, with the statue in it. Then
they've got curtains, hanging around those things on the trees. And the
customers go inside the curtains. That's to keep people from looking in, for
privacy--an act of worship in the most holy.

     Aww, don't you worry, brother! There are some pious characters in this
earth! You ought to go to West Florida University, and hear them talk.

     Now, next time we'll have a test over Revelation, and this test over
Revelation will be over chapter 1 and chapter 2. 18 And unto the angel of the
church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes
like unto a flame of fire, and his feet [are] like fine brass; 19 I know thy
works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works;
and the last [to be] more than the first. 20 Notwithstanding I have a few
things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth
herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit
fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. 21 And I gave her space
to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. 22 Behold, I will cast her
into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation,
except they repent of their deeds. 23 And I will kill her children with death;
and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and
hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. 24 But
unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this
doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will
put upon you none other burden. 25 But that which ye have [already] hold fast
till I come. 26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to
him will I give power over the nations: 27 And he shall rule them with a rod
of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I
received of my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

     Chapter 2, verse 18. "Unto the angel of the church in Thyatira." Now
"Thyatira" means "odor of affliction." So this church here follows Pergamos,
the big marriage deal, which shows the real church here is getting persecuted
and getting killed right and left; they're going through hell on wheels. This
period of church history here is probably some period between about, anywhere
between 500 to 1000 a.d. And between 500 and 1000 a.d., why, the Roman
Catholic Church is coming into power and gaining power, and they're getting
rid of everybody who doesn't believe them and go along with them.

     Now, that's a matter of church history. And that's why we teach you
church history here. Now, I apologize to some of you young men about these
matters; I get you kind of stirred up, so you kind of get chocked to the bit
and pulled to the harness about these things. You have to be careful.

     Now, if all this stuff--studying church history--and all this stuff gets
you irritated as much as it does, can you imagine how I feel about it? I mean,
I have access to information that I haven't given you, plus the information
I've given you and some more, that I know about. And, if I can cool it on
certain occasions, then you're going to have to cool it too. You can get
rabid, brother! You can get you an M16 and go over to North Highland and get
in it. And some of them do it, you know. If you want to get rabid, that would
be what to do.

     But you are just going to have to face it; that outfit in the Bible is
connected with the devil's bride. And, in church history, one thing it shows,
it shows that bunch is the greatest force in this world to oppose Biblical
Christianity of any force on earth. And Communism is small potatoes alongside
it. Communism has only been operating for 100 years. Communism is about 1870
to about 1970--and this old sister here has been around years and years and
years. Stalin and Khruschev both went to seminary; they were both seminarians
who studied the Bible.

     All right, "Thyatira" means "the odor of affliction," and during this
time, of course, if you know church history, you know what's going on. Now,
during this time, they're burning Paulicians, and Bogomiles, and Waldensians,
and Donatists at the stake. And, like Augustine says, anybody is damned who
doesn't believe in infant baptism (the Council of Carthage), and those are
matters of church history. You can't learn them in the public school system,
because there's a law in the United States government that says nobody dares
tell the truth. So you can't find the facts, and if you don't get them in a
church history book, then you're just going to be stupid all your life. That's
all there is to it.

     Now, if you're not going to school here, and you're visiting with us
tonight, and not enrolled in the school, I can tell you what to do. Just get
you a good church history and read it. You say, "What church history?" Take
your pick. Take your pick.

     That outfit's so corrupt, even their own historians have to mention it
once in awhile. Any history. Get LaTournier. Get Newman. Get Schaff. Get
LeGarde. Doesn't make any difference. Any recognized church history, a
standard book, will show you what they did. And they would burn you as quick
as look at you.

     All right, verse 18: "And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write;
These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of
fire, and his feet [are] like fine brass." That's the vision that John saw
back in chapter 1--the resurrected Christ, the risen Christ.

     He starts: "I know thy works." Like He started the other time. "And
charity." They're givers. "And service." They're working. "And faith, and thy
patience, and thy works." Now, that is a good church. And He says, "The last"
[works] "[to be] more than the first." "And the last"--the antecedent is
"works"--"to be more than the first, than the works that you started with."

     All right, "I know thy works, that you did to start with; I know thy
works that you're doing right now. I've kept track of you all the way." Now,
that's a good church; that's a church that exercises love, and serves the
Lord. It has faith; it has patience; and the works that it does are now, it's
working for the Lord harder then than it did to start with."

     "Notwithstanding." There's always something; the Lord will not spare you.
As soon as He finds something wrong, He'll tell you. "Notwithstanding I have a
few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which
calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit
fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." Now, obviously, that
has to be figurative--unless the Lord resurrects Jezebel, and brings her back,
and has her fooling around with the church--which I doubt very strongly.

     Now, the rule for Bible interpretation is, if it can't be taken
literally, it is figurative. The rule of heresy is, try to make it figurative
if you can! But, that isn't it. The thing is, it's always literal, unless it's
impossible. If it's impossible, then it's figurative.

     I take this to be figurative here. I take this to be impossible, that one
church, local church in the Tribulation, would have Jezebel attached to it,
after she would be resurrected. I could be wrong.

     But that's stretching it way out, brother. Way out!

     All right, now, Jezebel teaches them to do certain things. I want to have
you take verse 20, and run it to verse 14. Run 14 and 20. And look at them.
Now, you see how close those things are? All right, last week, when we studied
Revelation, I ran you through a number of references on Balak and Balaam in
verse 14. I took you back to Numbers 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25, and went through
that whole thing with you, and showed you what he did. I also talked to you a
little bit for awhile on how fornication got connected with the worship
service, and how this "love," "love," "love," "love," "love," "love," "love,"
bit is dangerous--because it winds up with not "God is love," but it winds up
with "love is God."

     When Pelee played his last soccer ball game a couple days back, he got up
there and said, "Let me hear you say it: LOVE!-uh-LOVE!-uh-LOVE!-LOVE!" Well,
now all you need is the priest and the music, man. You've got your worship
service going on.

     Love is not God. God is love. And God is also a consuming fire.

     All right, now she's connected, Jezebel, some way with Balak and Balaam.
How? Well, the only possible way could be in Baal worship. So let's go back in
the Old Testament, and let's see what Baal worship is. Now, this time, we'll
pick up Jezebel.

     First Kings, chapter 16. First Kings, chapter 16. First Kings, chapter
16, verse 30. Now, we're studying the relation, that Baal worship and Jezebel
and Baalim had to do with a Tribulation situation, and, in church history, to
the situation that took place when the Roman Catholic Church gained the
ascendancy after Pope Gregory I--Gregory the Great.

     First Kings 16:30: "And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the
LORD above all that [were] before him.  And it came to pass, as if it had been
a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that
he took to wife Jezebel..." there's the gal we're looking for... "the daughter
of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians." Where are the Zidonians from? They're from
Ham, Genesis chapter 10; they're called Phoenicians in world history; they
come from Ham, Genesis 10. "And went and served Baal, and worshipped him."
There it is. Verse 33: "And Ahab made a grove."

     Now, the Lord told them back in the Old Testament, "Don't make a statue
of any image and put it in a grove." And Ahab's got him a grove. And if you
want to see a grove with an image in it, then drive by St. Mary's, or St.
Stephen's, or St. Anne's, or anyplace else. Or, if you come to school from
downtown at night, drive up that shortcut that goes between Olive Road and
come up to Janss and look on your right, and you'll see her sitting over there
in the grove.

     Those things are unmentionables and unspeakables out in this modern
"love," "love," "love" movement, see? The thing that's going to kill that
movement is the truth. So the less truth, the better they get along.

     All right, now, on Baal. Let's see about Baal. First Kings chapter 18,
verse 19: "Now therefore send, [and] gather to me all Israel unto mount
Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of
the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table." Verse 23; when you
sacrifice to Baal, you don't sacrifice a lamb; it's a bullock. BULL--B-U-L-L.
As in BAAL. Verse 26: "And they took the bullock which was given them, and
they dressed [it], and called on the name of Baal from morning even until
noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. ...No voice...They leaped upon the altar which
was made.  And it came to pass at noon." Twelve o'clock. The sun's straight
up. Baal worship on the day of the sun--the sun god. Baal is the god of the
sun, so they worshipped on "Sun"day, and it's twelve o'clock, everybody had to
get out and light up a cigarette. So they leaped at noon. And at noon "Elijah
mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he [is] a god; either he is talking, or
he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, [or] peradventure he sleepeth, and must
be awaked." Making fun of him! Making fun of him! Ridiculing their religion!
Speaking against their faith! Bad boy!

     "And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives
and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." Mutilate themselves, doing
penance for their sins, trying to get an answer. Like they do in the
Philippines, Spain, Italy, and South America.

     "And it came to pass, when midday was past, and" so forth and so on, and
nobody regarded.

     All right, then, he comes up there and tears that place down; you know
the rest of that story there.

     Now, about these Baal worshippers, they wear a funny kind of clothes, and
they have a funny name for these clothes. The clothes they wear are called
"vestments." V-E-S-T. Turn to 2 Kings, and in 2 Kings get 2 Kings chapter 10,
and get 2 Kings chapter 10, verse 22. They worship at noon on Sunday, they
worship a bull and use in their ceremonies and do penance, and whip themselves
and cut themselves, and they have in 2 Kings 10:22, "vestments," and they have
a "vestry," where they keep their "vestments." And the man in charge of the
vestments" is called a "vestryman."

     That isn't all. They have a female deity called Ashtoreth. Turn to the
Book of Judges; she's the moon goddess, and matches with Baal, the male
principal. So, if they've got them male and female, two and two's going to be
four. Judges chapter 2, and look at verse 13, and look out for the 13: "And
they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth." Those are the gods of
Ahab and Jezebel.

     Ashtoreth was a woman, a female goddess. So she had a peculiar title.
You'd never guess what she was called. What was she called? She was called
"the queen of Heaven" in a King James 1611 Authorized Version. Turn to
Jeremiah; in Jeremiah this female goddess is called the Queen of Heaven.
Jeremiah 44, verses 17 and 18. So this is an ancient religion; it's connected
with Phoenicia. It has nothing to do with Biblical Christianity. They're not
even kin. It doesn't have anything to do with orthodox Judaism. Jeremiah
44:17: "Burn incense unto the queen of heaven." Jeremiah 44:18: "Burn incense
unto the queen of heaven." Jeremiah 44:19: "Burn incense unto the queen of
heaven."

     All right, let's see what their priests are called. Turn to Judges 18.
You'd never guess what they call their priests. Not possibly! Unless you had
an RSV or a Living Bible, you couldn't find out what was going on. Judges 18.
I'll begin at Judges 17, verse 10. Judges 17, verse 10. There's nothing like a
King James Bible to make a wreck of an ecumenical movement. Judges 17:10; men
get together at the expense of truth. That's why this is a small school, and
will probably always stay a small school. That's why, if it gets too big, we
may have to do something about cutting it down. I know this thing. The more
men get together, the less truth you could afford to disseminate. Did you
know, in the public schools 50 years ago, you could have read out of the Old
Testament morning, noon, and night, and not have offended anybody in the
school--because orthodox Jews believe in the Old Testament, orthodox
Protestants believe in the Old Testament, and orthodox Catholics believe in
the Old Testament. But, if you began to read it about 20 years ago, you would
have got some hollering from atheists. And, if you read it now, from the Navy
folks and the Army folks and the Marine folks, you have Buddhists, Taoists,
Hindus, Moslems, and Confucianists in the classroom--and you wouldn't dare!

     So, one of the great progresses of modern science is that the quicker
transportation goes and the better communication you get, the less truth
you're going to hear.

     Now, you know what would happen if Billy Sunday got on television tonight
and preached like he preached? He would be off tomorrow night. You know who
would put him off? The Christians. The Christians. The bootleggers would
probably eat it up. They'd look at it and say, "Hey, he sure has got your
number, man! Yo yo yo!"

     Brother Christian would sit around and say, "Oh! Oh! Oh! What a rude,
crude, obnoxious, uncouth--why, he doesn't reflect the spirit of Christ! That
isn't the spirit of the Saviour! Oh! You can't win people that way! That's old
stuff these days!"

     I know what they're saying out there; and that's the bunch that aren't
winning them. That's the bunch who are building up their attendance at income
by not telling the truth. Now, Billy Graham, he can get on and get in there a
little close, but he can't get too close. They'll get rid of him. J. Vernon
McGee, he'd beat all around the bush--he'll believe everything. He'll talk
about 'oranges of gold in pictures of silver,' you know. I know what version
that's in--oranges. They didn't have any oranges over there in Palestine back
in the Old Testament time--they had a little old thing like an apple, but not
an orange. This wild stuff, you know.

     They have one who comes on called C.W. Berkhol. I mean, he's the Dean
Martin of the Christian world. That old boy comes on there, and they come on
there and say, "Now bringing you this great man of God, heard from coast to
coast, bringing you this fearless message of God's love."

     Ahhhh, soak your head!

     "The fearless message of God's love."

     When did it take any guts to tell anybody that God loved them? Would you
tell me that? That's all this bunch have been telling them for 100 years, and
damn their souls right and left. "This fearless message of God's love." Go
stick your head in a wienie roast, buddy!

     And the guy comes on there, and he says, "This fearless message of God's
love--Mr. C.W. Berkhol." And he says, "Good day, friends. The first thing I
want to say to you is, that God loves you, and I love you too!"

     I'll tell you, man, to hear a guy like that talking about being a
preacher makes me ashamed I'm a preacher, brother! But, what'll happen to him
if he opens up and tells the truth? They'll kick him off the air.

     They got rid of Carl McIntyre. Yes sir, they got him off--when he put up
his own radio station out there in Chesapeake Bay, and shortwave outside the
five-mile limit, they closed that down too! You know what the trouble is? Too
much truth! Too much truth.

     I mean, can you imagine anybody putting me on Telstar to speak to the
United Nations? Ha! Ha! Wouldn't that be something? Don't you know there would
be a civil war or revolution, man? And, you say, "What would you do?" I'd get
up and just offend as many people as I could in the shortest possible time, is
what I'd do! I'd just get up and assure myself of 15 million enemies, brother--
as soon as I got up. You say, "How would you do that?" I would just tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--and that'll make you all
the enemies you need! You wouldn't even have to be nasty. I mean, just tell
all the truth. Just be sweet. If some of you folks aren't nasty like Brother
Ruckman, just be sweet and say, "You generation of vipers, how can you escape
the damnation of hell?" Ha! Ha!

     And let me tell you something. You won't make any more friends than I
make! Amen, brother! Amen! Amen! Amen!

     Listen, what this world can't stand is the truth. That's what they can't
stand. Oh, they'll act like, it's his "manners," or "his speech." That ain't
the problem.

     I get letters all the time. Kids in school, you know, sending me Xerox
copies of Rice and Rumminger and Bob Jones and stuff, you know, where they're
calling me everything but white. And all of these letters, you know, come in,
"Brother Ruckman calling men bad names, and terrible language, and vicious,
uncouth, crude, rude language and atrotious," and this and that. And here
comes a letter that says, "Dear Dr. John, first let me compliment you on your
fine spiritual work. I've followed your work for many years, and appreciate
how God has used you. I've always used your books in my bookrack, and
recommend your books." And then he takes the same position that I take, the
guy in the letter. And then, in closing he says, "I appreciate your spiritual
help on this; I realize you're much smarter than I am, and know Greek more
than I know. I appreciate any suggestion that you can give."

     And back comes the letter back: "You're dishonest, you're not asking the
right kind of questions. Those are facitious; I have no time to waste with
you; you're following a bad man, and have no business keeping bad company,"
and blam, blam, blam! And, when that fellow wrote, he was just as nice and
civil and cultured and refined as any gentleman could be. The issue is not my
speech! They're lying.

     Ever hear Dr. Edward Hills? That fellow is as cool and objective and
refined and cultured as any Christian gentleman you ever met in your life.
They ban his books at Bob Jones University, and won't let him or Otis Fuller
on the campus. I've got a letter signed by Stewart Custer, saying they drove
Otis Fuller off the campus, and forbid his books in the bookstore. What's
wrong with Otis Fuller? He's a Christian gentleman; he doesn't use uncouth,
hard, crude, rude language. He doesn't good men bad names. That's the trouble!
He's committed the unpardonable sin; he's told the truth about the Bible.
Naughty! Naughty! Mustn't do that!

     Judges 17, verse 17. You know why I do it, you see. I mean, I've got an
alibi for my sins, too. You know why I do it? I do it because I know how
they're going to react before I start. I never give them the benefit of the
doubt. Now, those fellows do. Otis Fuller and Hills are just positive thinkers
to the very end, just hoping these men are deceived, just hoping that if you
give them a little bit of truth, they'll accept it, and praying for them all
along. I know you ought to do it that way, but I just can't do it that way! I
mean, when I come to them, brother, I take one look at them, and I say,
"You're just as guilty as hell," and I begin there! And so, if they get right,
OK; and if they don't, OK.

     All right, Judges 17, verse 10: "Judges 17:10 And Micah said unto him,
Dwell with me, and be unto me...." ooooh! "...a father and a priest." Now,
there it is. The idea of calling a priest "Father" had nothing to do with the
New Testament; it was Judges 17:10, how many years before Christ was born?
1406 b.c., they're calling a priest "father."

     And that isn't all. He's not only a priest who is a father, but in verse
5, he's taking care of some graven images. 17:5.

     So, we know now what Jezebel's religion is.

     All right, let's go back to Revelation chapter 2. In Baal worship, you
have a male deity, and a female deity, and the female deity is called "the
queen of Heaven"; she's actually an adulteress and a prostitute. Revelation
chapter 2, verse 20: "Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach
and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed
unto idols." Now, the way this thing works in ancient Greece, they had what
they called the Parthenon. And the Parthenon, of course, is from "parthenis,"
which means "virgin." And these people are called "Vestal" virgins, because,
in the vestry, they have the vestments, where the vestryman was. So they were
called "Vestal"--V-E-S-T-A-L--Virgins. And the idea was, they were in the
"ante-room," or the vestibule--that's the word for it--when you come into the
temple. And they had on one hand, "Virgin Women" for the men, and then "virgin
men" for the women. Of course, they were anything but virgin--they were temple
prostitutes. They were religious harlots.

     There is one of them mentioned back in Genesis, where Judah is going down
to see his father-in-law, and he sees a harlot by the wayside. That's a temple
prostitute there. And he goes in to her.

     All right, you get this thing where, since "love is love," and "love is
God," and "you should reverence human life," and all that, then pretty soon
the act of procreation becomes elevated to an act of worship, and you
incorporate that in the worship service. Then, to stir up the worshippers, you
bring in music to "express the joyous creation of creative sexuality"--I mean,
they all have ways to say it, you know--get the chump to pay his money--
"sexuality." And then they get in there, and get the dance band going, and off
come the clothes.

     You say, "It wouldn't happen." It's already happened! It happened out in
Gladenmore, and it's happened in some other places.

     And then you get the dance band and the jazz band and the nudes, then in
comes all the rest of it. And the first thing you know, you've got a religious
service going there, where it's nothing but just plain ol' immoral filth!

     Now that's what those pagan people were involved with in Palestine, when
God called those Jews out, and He said, "You go in there and kill 'em!"

     And they said, "How many?"

     And He said, "Kill the babies. Kill the babies."

     "If you find any women showing up there who haven't known man, you can
keep them. If they've known man, kill 'em." Why? Because, if they've known
man, then they've been involved in those worship services down there with that
false god. That's why He told them to do that. That wasn't a lustful kind of a
thing He had in mind there.

     And somebody said, "Well, why did He tell them to kill 'em all like
that?" Because, if they didn't, that false religion would rise up and corrupt
Israel. It was a case of you going to the doctor, and you've got gangrene in
your foot, because you got diabetes and can't get circulation down there, and
the fellow says, "Well, I'll have to cut off your foot."

     You say, "What a horrible, godless, depraved, cruel thing to do, to cut
off a man's foot!"

     And he says, "Well, brother,  it's either the foot or the leg!"

     And you say, "Well, I just don't believe in that. That's being cruel. God
wouldn't do a thing like that." Well, get your whole leg gangrenous, and then
die!

     Now, when God sent those Jews in there, He knew that bunch there was
going to corrupt them and turn them into these practices, so He said, "Kill
'em!"

     Now, I'm not telling you to kill anybody. I know where I am. I'm in the
New Testament. I'm not under a theocracy; I'm in the Body of Christ. I'm not
like John Calvin. I'm not going to set Pensacola up as a theocracy, and burn
the witches, you know, all this kind of stuff. I mean the Puritan may have
done that; we saved people have got better sense. But back in the Old
Testament the weapons of their warfare were carnal; ours are not. So He said,
"Go out there and kill 'em and get rid of this stuff."

     They carried on so far that bestiality was part of the worship service. I
mean, the horses got in on things! Didn't you ever read back there in 2
Samuel, where ol' David captured those chariot horses and "houghed"--hocked
'em, ham-hocked 'em--so they were all crippled, and couldn't be used? Don't
you remember the Lord told ol' Solomon, "Don't you go down to Egypt to get
horses"?

     What's wrong with horses, boys?

     I'll tell you, if you've got a Bible, you've got the dynamite of God. And
if you ever find anything on this earth you don't understand, you get in here
and stay awhile, and pretty soon you'll understand it. Those pagan rites got
into sodomy, they got into bestiality, they got in all the kind of stuff that
America's heading for right now, and they're typified here in the Church Age
by Jezebel, and she calls herself a "prophetess"--therefore, she's a religious
figure. She's a picture of a false church system. And that system will lead to
that kind of stuff.

     Verse 21: "And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she
repented not.  Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit
adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill her children with death." Do you know what happened back there
along about that time--a little bit later, oh, in the time of the next church,
along about 1200? The Black Death hit Europe. And, you talk about killing a
man; it did as much damage in Europe as World War II did! You know what else
happened to the Catholic Church? They went to Palestine in seven Crusades, and
lost the best young men they had in Europe--killed over there.

     "And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know
that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every
one of you according to your works.  But unto you I say, and unto the rest in
Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine,..." the doctrine of Jezebel, back
there in verse 20, and Balaam in verse 14, "...and which have not known the
depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden." In any
apostate group, you have Christians who don't know how deep the apostasy is.
In any Catholic Church, you have Christians that are innocent and don't know
what the Catholic Church believes and how it acts. You have to be very careful
about attacking or hating individual Catholics, because some of them are fine
people, and some of them are saved. You're dealing with a system. You're
dealing with a system. You're not dealing with individuals. You're dealing
with a system.

     And many of them don't know how deep the thing is.

     In the Dark Ages, the biggest evangelical movement in the Dark Ages was
the movement of the Cathari. And the Cathari were evangelical believers who
stayed in the Catholic Church. They didn't come out with the Waldensians and
Huguenots and the Bogomiles and the rest of them. They stayed in, and
undoubtedly many of them were innocent.

     And He said about that bunch, they've "not known the depths of Satan, as
they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have
[already] hold fast till I come.  And he that overcometh,..." Tribulation
application "...He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end,..."
Tribulation application "...to him will I give power over the nations..."
Millennium. "And he shall rule them with a rod of iron;..." Millennium.

     "As the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I
received of my Father." "Shivers" is Old English for "splinters."

     "And I will give them the morning star." The "morning star" in the Book
of Revelation is Jesus Christ Himself. Compare this with Revelation chapter
22, verse 16: "I am...the bright and morning star." Revelation 22:16.

     So undoubtedly you have a Tribulation reference here doctrinally, where
somebody in the Tribulation has an element of faith and works till the end of
the Tribulation, ready for the Lord to come back, and they're being told that
they'll be given Jesus Christ. Then it isn't like the free gift of God in the
Church Age now doctrinally.

     "And I will give him the morning star.  He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Now, let me go back for a minute on
verse 24 and talk a minute about this "depths of Satan , as they speak." Now,
that has two applications. One thing you ought to understand as a child of
God, now first of all it has an application that many people don't know the
dangers in bad translations. We had a fellow get up here the other night and
give testimony, and he got saved eventually, and the only Bible he was reading
before he got saved was the Living Bible--or Good News, was it? One of those--
Good News. And like I told you before, you can lead a man to Christ out of any
Bible. Any Bible has enough truth in it to lead a man to Christ with, but that
doesn't mean that it's a Bible. You can find all the fundamentals of the faith
in any of these new bibles. That doesn't mean they're bibles.

     For example, I could give you a gospel tract, and that tract could lead
you to Christ, but that wouldn't be a Bible. I could get a commentary, and in
that commentary I could find you all the fundamentals of the faith; that
wouldn't mean the commentary was a Bible, see?

     So, in dealing sometimes with people who have other versions, all this
and that, you have to be very careful. Some of those people don't have the
knowledge you have. Brother Zeri said to me, he said the other night, he said,
"You know, one of the biggest problems we have when we get out of this school
is keeping our mouth shut."

     And I said, "You're right! You're right!"

     One of the biggest problems you're going to have in keeping your mouth
shut is not telling all you know, because you're going to get stuff here that
the faculty at Tennessee Temple never heard of. And I don't say that bragging;
I'm just telling you the truth, and forewarning you--and forewarned is
forarmed. So, when you get out there, for goodness' sake, don't start telling
about male angels, you know, and eating part of the devil's head and manna
during the Tribulation, you know, and blood-sucking angels off Jupiter coming
back--take it easy on 'em, man, take it easy on 'em! I mean, spend some time
talking about prayer and talking about soul-winning, you see? And remember
that they don't have the knowledge that you have.

     Now, you have to know how to handle yourself these ways. Now, I know what
kind of fellow I am. I ought to; I've lived with myself now 55 years; I ought
to pretty well know what's here. I know what's here, what he can do and what
he can't do, and what he knows and what he doesn't know. If I sit down at a
table, and John R. Rice is sitting down here, and Bob Jones here, and Lee
Roberson up here, and Jack Hyles over here, and Anmil Runninger, and Stewart
Custer and Zodhiates over here, and we have a table, and we're all sitting
around having a nice, fried chicken dinner, you know what I'd do? Eat chicken!
I'd enjoy myself. I'd be a gentleman.

     I wouldn't reach under my table and pull out a Bible and get to wave it
around the table, and say, "What about this? and what about that? And you
said, 'original Greek,' and hhrrummph! hhrrummph! hhrrummph! hhrrumphh!"

     Now, if some of you fellows do, I'm going to tell you something right
now. You don't follow my example. You know, if I was in a church, and I had a
guy get up there and preach, you know, and say "The Bible says, the Bible
says," and correct it three or four times, when he came down out of the
pulpit, I wouldn't rush him, waving the King James Bible around there, saying,
"You said this, and that isn't the Bible. You believe the Bible is the word of
God. What do you mean?" I wouldn't do that. You'd never see me do that.

     And if some of you fellows would do that, you may be following somebody's
example, but you're not following mine! Now, I know how it is. You read my
stuff, you hear me preach, you're just dying to give it the same. And you know
it's the soul saying you can't wait, but what you've got to remember, bud, is
I waited. I waited. And I had a long wait. I didn't get saved until I was 27.
I went to school six years before I had my chance.

     Now, you be a good boy for three years, OK? And what's good for the goose
is good for the gander.

     I mean, when you get out there, if you want to flaunt your knowledge and
use it and stir up trouble and raise Cain with it, then you're on your own. If
the Lord leads that way, OK; if He doesn't, why, it'll show you further. He'll
guide you and teach you and lead you. But that isn't my way of handling
things. Now, if I was sitting at a table, and suddenly Brother Rice turned to
me and said, "Did you say I was an apostate?" I would answer and tell him the
truth.

     I would say, "No sir, I have called you an apostate fundamentalist in
matters of Biblical authority, and make sure you limit it to that context;
don't you lie about me!" See, I know 'em. I never give 'em the benefit of the
doubt. I take for granted I can read their mind.

     And if I was sitting right there, and Zodhiates turned to me and said,
"That word is translated wrong in the Receptus," I'd tend to lock horns with
him. But I'm not going to sit there and stir up trouble. Now, you'll stir up
enough trouble just doing right, so just take it easy!

     Now, this "depths of Satan." The people you're going to deal with out in
the world are not going to know what you know about false doctrine, and about
manuscript evidence--they're not going to know! You're going to have to be
careful.

     And one thing some of you birds ought to be careful about is, you're not
as rooted and grounded in the word as well as you think you are! And when you
get out there, and you get pressed right up to it, you're going to say,
"Ruckman said," or "Ruckman taught," or "Ruckman, Ruckman," and you're going
to find yourself in a mess! You'd better have that Bible down, where instead
of "Ruckman," it's the word of God!

     We had a young man go down to Lester Roloff's place down there, and he
got down there, and he made the mistake of saying that tongues were of the
devil, or something like that. He'd been there awhile, and began to try to
convince everybody around there that tongues were of the devil. And Roloff got
on him and put the "criatus" on him for talking like that around here and
there. And somebody said, "Well, isn't Brother Roloff compromising?"

     No. Now, I understand that situation. That situation down there is not a
church teaching deep doctrine about the word of God. That thing Roloff's got
there is rehabilitation for juvenile delinquents, and those young people need
the basic milk and the basic food, and to grow in grace slow, and stay
separated and stay away from the world until they get their feet on the
ground!

     Now, you don't come in there and say, "This is of the devil," and "That
is of the devil." You sit down, and when somebody asks you about something,
you show them what they asked about from the word of God. And, if you get up
and preach, why, you preach a thing and give the truth on it. But you don't
make a statement like that; you're not conducting an evangelist's crusade at
Roloff's home. That's a place for rehabilitation, where people have been in
trouble. You have to be careful, brother. You have to be careful. And you've
got to remember, those people don't know what you know.

     Now, that's the first application. Now, we'll talk about the second one.
Now, the second one is this. What are the "depths of Satan"? Well, the devil
winds up in the lake of fire. And, in the Book of Ezekiel, when God wants to
talk about the devil, he said the devil is like unto Pharaoh. And he says when
Pharaoh, he'll get down there in hell, in the bottomless pit, and see all the
uncircumcised there, and he'll have comfort in his multitude. The only place
in the Bible where I read about the devil getting any comfort is when he goes
to hell and sees all the people he's damned. That's over there in the Book of
Ezekiel.

     Now, you can't imagine a man having pleasure out of seeing people damned,
unless you're a sadist. But, if you're a sadist, and enjoy seeing people
tortured and hearing them scream, like a lot of bunker guards were in the
concentration camps, and a lot of Communists are--"fear begets fear," and so
forth and so on--then you'd get comfort or you'd enjoy hearing somebody scream
in a fire.

     You say, "I wouldn't enjoy a thing like that." You don't know the depths
of Satan as you speak.

     Now, that's the bottom.

     You say, "Well, I'd never do that." Then you don't know you're own
depths.

     Now, here's how that thing works. You take a cigarette. And you get sick.
And a little later, you take a cigarette, and you don't get sick. You take two
or three of them, and get sick. A little later, you take two or three of them,
and you don't get sick. Pretty soon, you take a pack--and you don't get sick.
Pretty soon, you go on a pack a day, or a pack a half a day. Pretty soon, it
doesn't turn you on any more; you'll be looking for something a little bit
stronger. You get something a little bit stronger. You get something a little
bit stronger, and pretty soon it turns you on, and pretty soon it ceases to
turn you on, and you have to get something a little bit stronger.

     Now, that thing will run along there, and that thing may stop with some
kind of seed you're chewing, or some kind of glue you're sniffing, or run into
something you're inhaling, and then run into now you're popping it; and pretty
soon you're a mainliner, and pretty soon being a mainliner don't fix it,
either!

     Now, you know what happens? The Japanese say, "Man take drink. Drink take
drink. Drink take man." That's profound. When you take the first one, you're
in control. That develops an appetite. With the next one you take, your
appetite takes it. And then after awhile, it's got control of you, and the
appetite is bigger than you, and then the drink takes you.

     Now, all sin works that way. You get to fooling around with dirty
thoughts, and pretty soon that thing goes into dirty magazines, and pretty
soon that thing goes into fornication or adultery, or whoremongering, or
something else. And pretty soon that doesn't satisfy, and it gets irregular.
Then he gets deviant. Then he gets perverted. You know where that thing winds
up? That thing winds up to where, the only thing you enjoy is taking a 15-year-
old boy and abusing him and torturing him to death, and abusing his dead body
and burying it in a bag down the beach.

     And you say, "Well, I just wouldn't get anything out of that." He did.
You say, "He's different from me." No, he's not! He's made in Adam's image,
just like you. He's a human being, just like you. Of course, he's unsaved.
You've a check in you if you're saved that he doesn't have.

     But you see, some of you folks, because you haven't hit bottom, you are
making the mistake of thinking other folks can't hit, because some of them do.
And you don't want to make the mistake of thinking that if it wasn't for the
grace of God, you would have! See? And the better you know yourself about
that, the more check you're going to keep to yourself, and the more trouble
it's going to keep you out of. When the final thrill comes at the bottom, it
comes from enjoying hearing somebody scream--and that's where Hell winds up.
And that's where all these good, nice folks, you know that are unsaved, are
going to wind up. So, it's in 'em. And it's in you. And, thank God, you got
saved! Thank God you got saved!

     QUESTION: Some people get pleasure out of suffering in Hell?

     ANSWER: Yeah. Well, a masochist can enjoy it. Some people, the only kind
of pleasure they can get is from being whipped. That's all the joy there is,
is pain. That's the bottom.

     QUESTION: Where is that passage about the devil taking comfort from
people suffering in Hell?

     ANSWER: I'd say it's in Ezekiel, in the 20's. I forget where it is, but
look somewhere between 22--anybody got it? Sir? 32:31. I thought it was back
in the 20s.

     QUESTION: What was the first application again of "the depths of Satan"?

     ANSWER: Well, the first application is, in dealing with people, you've
got to remember that all of them don't know the satanic operation as well as
you know them, so sometimes you have to be careful in dealing with them.

     QUESTION: What was the date again of Thyatira in the Church Age?

     ANSWER: This thing in the Church Age will come roughly between 500 and
1000. Now, like I say, those periods are open to overlap, and nobody knows
exactly for sure where they are. Because there is only one more church period
between here and the Reformation, and that's Sardis, chapter 3, verse 1. So,
if there's only one period between here and the Reformation, which is the
Philadelphia church, chapter 3, verse 7, that thing must be sometime around
like the middle of the Dark Ages. Around the year 1000.

     QUESTION: Is there a rebuke of the church of Smyrna?

     ANSWER: I don't see a rebuke there. I don't see a rebuke there. If you
answered Smyrna on which church didn't receive a rebuke, it would be correct,
for chapter 2. In chapter 3, it's Philadelphia.

     QUESTION: We are told not to rebuke an elder. But isn't that what Paul
did to Peter in Galatians 2?

     ANSWER: No, he didn't rebuke him. Turn to Galatians 2, and I'll show it
to you. Galatians 2, verse 11: "But when Peter was come to Antioch, I
withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." Verse 14: "But when I
saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I
said unto Peter before [them] all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the
manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles
to live as do the Jews?" See? That's withstanding. He asked him a question
that's pretty hard to answer. "Rebuke not an elder"--that means a sure-enough,
stiff reprimand. The question comes up, whether Peter was older than Paul, I
don't know.

     All right, Revelation chapter 2, verse 25. Now this is the church at
Thyatira, and roughly this church period in church history represents a period
somewhere along between 500 and 1000 a.d., and of course, if you know church
history, you know that in this period the Roman Catholic Church is in complete
control, and this period begins with Gregory the Great, and runs up about the
time of the first Crusades, around the end of the first millennium.

     And he says in verse 25, "But that which ye have [already] hold fast till
I come.  And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him
will I give power over the nations." Notice the Tribulation reference--"unto
the end," like you find it in Matthew 24:13. And where you find that thing
"unto the end" anywhere, it always refers to the end of the Tribulation, a
period of time, and not to the end of a person's life.

     I pointed that out to you in Daniel, last week when we studied Daniel. I
gave you eight references on that.

     "He that overcometh." Now, by the margin there, write down if you haven't
got it written down 1 John 4:4 and 1 John 5:4, because that shows the
Christian has already overcome. There isn't a question of the Christian
overcoming. He's already overcome. First John 5:4, and 1 John 4:4. So, that is
aimed doctrinally at somebody else.

     "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I
give power over the nations." Notice, too, the "works" has to do with the
reign of Christ. It doesn't have to do with getting to Heaven. So, if you want
to make spiritual application to the Christian, you can. Because, if we suffer
with Him, we shall reign with Him."

     "Will I give power over the nations, And he shall rule them with a rod of
iron." There's your Millennial reign. "As the vessels of a potter shall they
be broken to shivers." Old English for "splinters." And it survives in the
gangster vocabulary as a "shiv," referring to a thin knife. "shall be broken
to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning
star." Jesus Christ is called "the day star" in 2 Peter 1:19, and He's called
the morning star in chapter 22, verse 16. So, again, you have a reference that
may have a Tribulation application, because we already have Christ.

     Now, I realize that's difficult, to keep getting this double application,
but you may as well face it. That, when you get past the Book of Hebrews, time
and time again, you're going to come into verses that you can't put down
doctrinally on a Christian. Now, you can put them down spiritually on a
Christian. You can say, "If you live for the Lord, and do what the Lord wants
you to do, you'll reign with Him, and then you'll have Him in the Millennium
as your closehand Friend," and all so forth and so on. You can make spiritual
application. But that isn't what it said. See? It said, "I'll give Him." "The
morning star." Well, the morning star is Christ in Revelation 22:16.

     "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches."

