The Last Instructions of Jesus Part Five

We're in a series called The Last Instructions of Jesus. This is part five. We um about 60 years after Jesus was dead, buried, and and rose again. Um he comes and visits John on the island of Patmos in a vision and shares with him seven letters, dictates to him, seven letters to seven churches.

So these are all red letters in Revelation 2 and three. And they're the last red letters. They're the last words of Jesus before he comes again. And so we've been going through the different churches.

They're all messages to different types of Christians that we have here in the end times. It was tucked in the end times book because it's an end times message, an end times church. And that's where we're at. And we're up to the fifth church, which is the corrupt church.

And I'm just going to start reading Revelation 2 verses 18- 29. And to the angel of the church in Thyatia, write these things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass. I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience. And as for works, the last are more than the first.

Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetus, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a sick bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.

I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works.

Now to you I say and to the rest in thyatia as many as do not have this doctrine who have not known the depths of of Satan as they say I will put on you no other burden but hold fast what you have till I come and he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end to him I will give power over the nations they shall rule them with a rod of iron they shall be dashed to pieces like potter's vessels as I have also received from my father and I will give him the morning star he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches So last week we were talking about the fourth church, the compromising church.

And um the difference between this church, the corrupt church, and the compromising church is this church doesn't repent of their deeds. They've been in their sin so long that they actually um uh don't even know they're sinning anymore. Okay? Um they've lost that conviction.

Last m last week we were talking about the uh numbers for pornography and 54% of all uh Christians look at porn and that of that group 49% of them think their level of porn consumption is okay. That 49% that have been looking at porn so long that they don't think there's anything wrong with it. That's the corrupt church versus the 51% that even though they they look at it, they they have this nervousness. They know they're doing something wrong.

That's the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Um, and read what he says here. He's going to cast them into a sick bed and into great tribulation. It It's possible this group doesn't even get raptured up.

They they have to go through the whole tribulation. And then he says he will kill her children with death. Now, I looked up that word death. It's apako and it's it's complete and utter destruction.

So, I What is he saying? Is he going to destroy them? Is he going to cast them out of heaven to hell? I'm not 100% sure.

And it's okay to not know everything. Um, this Bible is something that you're never going to master. When I first got saved, I understood um the sermon on the mount, but I couldn't understand Romans, and I had to grow in my faith and learn. And and that's the beauty of this word is you you can never outgrow it.

It's always going to grow. And so, all I know is this. um casting her into great tribulation into a sick bed and killing her children with death. It's not a good thing.

It's not a good thing. Okay? That's all I know. So, we may not want to go there.

Okay? And as we've gone through these letters, one thing is over overabundantly clear. God does not like sin. He hates sin.

And God hates sin because it hurts the people that he loves so much. It hurts us. And you may say, "Brian, Jesus came to wash those sins away. I'm clean.

He loves me no matter what I do. God is love." And by and large, that's accurate. Okay?

But he loves us too much to leave us where we're at. Okay? If you go to 1 Corinthians 6:es 9-11, Paul writes, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.

Neither fornicators, nor idolattors, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed and you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. So note the use of the past tense were. We were those things, but Jesus washed us clean.

He washed us clean. We're supposed to then turn and walk in the newness of life. We're supposed to walk in the way that he did. We're supposed to stop fornicating, stop the drunkenness, stop the homosexuality.

We're supposed to turn from it. And you might say, "But Brian, homosexuals were born that way. They're good people. We're to love them, accept them.

They can't help it. They were born that way." And many Christians believe this. Okay?

But but the Bible's not giving us that out here. Okay? That's 30 years of LGBTQ programming. Okay?

The Bible's very clear here that homosexuality is right there with fornication. Fornication is when you um are sleeping outside of marriage, right? And and u whether you're single or whether you're married, when you're sleeping around, that's fornication. You can't say you're a Bible believing Christian, okay, and say homosexuality is a lifestyle.

The Bible calls it clearly right here a sin. So you either believe the Bible or you believe what the world says that it's a lifestyle with the LGBTQ programming has taught you. Okay? Now, it doesn't mean it's easy to turn from these things.

Okay? And and we are absolutely to love the sinner, but we're to hate the sin. Okay. But it but it can be hard.

That's because the spirit of Jezebel is still alive and well. You know, Jesus mentions in Revelation 2 that the corrupt church allowed Jezebel to teach and seduce them into sexual immorality. Well, Jezebel was a Phoenician princess. Um, she married the Jewish king Ahab and introduced idol worship into Israel.

And we read read about her in first and 2 Kings. She dies though in 2 Kings chapter nine when she's thrown out a window and she's eaten by dogs. So a thousand years later Jesus is talking about her. Now he's obviously not talking about the individual person.

He's talking about the spirit of Jezebel, that sexual idolatry type of spirit. And he says, "I gave her time to repent and she would not repent. So he will cast her and all who follow her into great tribulation and death." Now that's Jesus talking, man.

That's not me. Okay, this is Brian. Don't get mad at Brian Beard. This this is Jesus talking.

Um, in 1 Corinthians 6 18-20, Paul writes this, "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside his body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

For you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods. Okay? He says, "Flee from it."

All right? The devil, we're told to resist the devil, and the devil will flee from us. Okay? But when it comes to sexual immorality, we're told to flee it.

Okay? Um Josh Howton told a great story. Um he said, "Listen, if you go out to your car, if you leave here today and you go out to your car and the devil's there, horns, everything, and the devil's by your car, bone up, you can get up, you can put your armor on, you can fight that thing, and he will flee from you. But if you leave here today and you go out to your car and there's this beautiful, seductive woman sitting by your car, flee.

Run from it, brother. You're not strong enough to handle that temptation." Okay. Um, I think that's a great that's that's what he's telling us to do.

Flee from it. Okay. I was born heterosexual, okay, with a pretty strong sex drive. But that doesn't mean I can sleep with a hundred women.

Okay. Um, you have to control that sex drive and wait for the marriage bed. It's not easy, but it can be done. Okay.

Um, Little Richard was a uh actor or a musician I guess an entertainer who was uh known for his debauchery and his orgies and his homosexuality and late in life he got saved and he turned from that lifestyle completely. So it can be done. God doesn't leave us alone in this. God sends a helper.

He sends the Holy Spirit to help us. Okay. In John 14 15 and 15-17, Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit. He says, "If you love me, keep my commandments.

If you love me, obey me. And I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you, abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells within you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans.

I will come to you. So Jesus ascended up to the right hand of God and he sent the Holy Spirit to come into the hearts of anyone who asks Jesus into their lives. Okay, we've got God himself inside of us. That's why this body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

It's the temple of God. Now he further describes the work of the Holy Spirit in John 16 verses 7-10. And I'm going to read it. And again, this is all Jesus's quotes right here.

Um, nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you.

And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin because they do not believe in me. Of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more. Of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

So the Holy Spirit has three jobs. Okay? He's got a job to unbelievers. He's got a job to believers.

And then his final job is judging the ruler of this world, which is Satan. Okay. Um his job to unbelievers is to testify to Jesus Christ. He uses us to convict the world.

Notice here he says he he he will convict the world of sin. That sin is singular. It's not plural. Not of sins.

Sin. What sin? The sin of rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord over your life, that's the unforgivable sin. That's the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

When you do not accept Jesus Christ into your heart and the reason it's the unforgivable sin is because Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the father except through me." Now, if he then allows people who rejected him into heaven, he's violating himself. He's found to be untrue and he can't do that.

So, even though he wishes no one would perish, okay? If you reject Jesus Christ, you leave him no option but to reject you and you don't get to go to heaven. But, but until the day you die, you have a chance. you have a chance to repent and turn and and accept them into your heart and the Holy Spirit uses us to help in that mission to reach the lost people.

Okay, what a blessing we get to take part in that. All right, so that's the Holy Spirit's work to the unbelievers. Uh the Holy Spirit's work to believers is to convict us for righteousness. It says he convicts the world of sin, singular, but he convicts us of righteousness okay?

not judgment. Okay? He's going to judge Satan. Conviction of righteousness is holding up the righteous standard of Jesus and giving you that that prick in your heart where you just know that you're what you're doing is wrong.

Okay? Um it'll feel a little bit like uh like guilt. Okay? You'll feel a little guilt.

You I'm I really shouldn't be doing this. It'll feel almost like guilt, but it's not guilt. Romans 8:1 says to the believers, those who've asked Jesus into their heart, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Okay?

But there is conviction to righteousness. God uses that conviction if we're open to it to clean us up and to heal us. Okay? In 1999, I was uh working.

This is the early days of the internet. And I get an email that has a link that looks like it's a business thing. And I click on the link and it opens up a porn site. And I freak out.

I I click the thing and it opens another one. I try to I keep trying to exit it and it keeps opening up new ones. And finally, and I just turned the computer off and and I'm like my heart rate was racing. I was like, "Oh man."

Okay. and I went home. But but but I had seen something and something was stirring. Okay.

Uh the next morning I'm on my knees because I kept my morning quiet time. The next morning I'm on my knees. God, please forgive me. Please forgive me for looking at that stuff.

I didn't mean to do it. You know, uh you know, please forgive me. But later that day, that night, called my wife, hey, I'm working late. And I went back there because I had seen something.

And so I'm there for a few hours watching that and I finally have to go home. Um and the next morning, God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And I'm weeping and and and really truly sorry that I'd done it.

And then the next night again the same thing that So for three days this battle is raging between um my flesh and the spirit. And uh finally it was so disgusting to me that I'm supposed to be this guy up here. God's holding up this standard. I'm this Christian married businessman.

I'm known as a Christian guy and here I am doing this thing. The gap was so great. I was so disgusted with myself. I just took that computer and I threw it away in the garbage can at the in the dumpster back there and and um bought a laptop and I never entered another porn site again.

Okay. So, so I took it to Jesus every morning. All right. And although I slipped up two or three days in a row before I finally was able to get control of the flesh, okay, with the help of the Holy Spirit, all right.

Um, I took it to Jesus and I opened up about it. I actually shared this in a book that I wrote back in 2008 and I shared it with other people. I brought it into the light. Okay.

Um, as it turned out, I wasn't the only one who'd been tricked by that type of uh thing. So, we've got to allow the word of God in, allow the Holy Spirit, and if we slip up, you repent and you turn and you go back and you ask God to help you through this struggle until you get to that place where it's no longer a struggle, where it's not even tempting anymore. And that can happen immediately. God can just heal you of of a conviction.

We've heard a testimony here um from Jen that that uh that she just came up out of the water and it was immediately gone. But it can also be something that takes some time. The difference is how how much you believe that what Jesus says is true is true. Once you get it into your heart that he loves you and that he really is for you, it you can and you bring it into light and you apologize to those hurt, it can go and now you've got accountability partners and it will you will overcome it.

Okay, avoid the triggers. Okay, I don't need to be going to a strip club, for example. Okay, avoid the triggers, but stay in the word and be strong.

Um, and that's how he cleans us up as as we take You know, one of the hardest things for Christians is uh they believe when they ask Jesus into their heart, they believe in their head that they are saved, that God loves them, but there's still a little bit of this old self down in their heart where they still believe they're this um this insecure, dirty, whatever whatever the the dynamic is that they that came from either childhood drama or some drama or or trauma or or something where they still believe it and they don't really believe deep down in their heart that Jesus has healed them, has cleaned them up, and loves them.

They they're still clinging to some of those old sins deep in their heart. So the devil can still go in there and when things start going the right way, he can come in there and trip you up by keep going in there and reminding you, "Oh, remember you were this, you did this." He's the accuser of the brethren, they say. Okay?

But if you keep going deep and releasing it, all right um and get it from your head to your heart, the Holy Spirit is there to help you. And you can get to that place where you just know that you know that you know that God loves you. He's crazy about you. And he is, he's crazy about you.

We are all sinners, right? That's why we have to love the sinner because we're sinners, too. You you can't hate the homosexual person when you're sitting there at work being paid for eight hours of work and scrolling through reels and wasting four hours. You're a thief.

You're a thief if you're doing that. So, you're a sinner, too. So, we have to love the sinner because we're no better. But we don't embrace the sin.

The Holy Spirit uses us to help others by our life, by our actions, by our words. But Jesus loved the sinner. He went to the cross for the sinner. That sin nailed him to the cross.

He hates sin. Okay, we've talked about it the last couple weeks, the adulterous woman um in John 8 where they were going to stone her and Jesus said, "With those who um have no sin, cast the first stone, one by one, they all they all leave until it's just Jesus and the girl." And she he says, you know, um are there no one here to convict you? And she said, "No, or condemn you?"

And he said, "No." And he said, "Neither do I condemn you." Which was grace. I don't condemn you.

You're free. But then he says, "Go and sin no more." That's truth. Okay?

It's it's the perfect marriage of grace and truth. The corrupt church here doesn't repent. Okay? They don't If you don't repent, there can be consequences, right?

But this church does not repent. They do not um ask for forgiveness. Okay? They're they're Christians.

They're Christians. This is to a church. They're doing good works. You see up here it was saying, "I know your patience.

I know your works." Um and the works of the first. So, they're doing good works, but they have sin in their heart that they have not embraced or that they've embraced and that they've done so long they don't even see it as a sin anymore. And remember, when you sin, you're separating yourself from God.

So, even though they're Christians, God can't hear them. God can't dwell with them. that he they've got to repent of that sin to get that connection back. You lose the connection to the power source when you stay dwelling in that sin.

And and and he says here some serious stuff like I will throw them into tribulation and death. It kind of reminds me of Proverbs 29:1 where it says, "He who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will be destroyed and that without remedy." God loves you. He doesn't want anyone to perish.

So it's not surprising that he may use extreme measures to reach you. Okay, that's true love. He knows that the more you become like Jesus, the more joy you will have. Okay, and your joy will be complete.

In Revelation 2:23, he says, "I will give to each one according to your works." Okay? If you're good, you get he'll give good things. You know, if you're bad, there's a possibility you could suffer.

It could be burned up at the beacy. All right? God does discipline us. That's not taught a lot in the church today, okay?

It's it's all rainbows and kisses and he's he's gonna make you rich and and all this, but but actually God will discipline us. Anyone who's been a Christian for any length of time knows that God will engineer situations to where we grow and we learn because you don't learn on the mountain tops, you learn in the valleys. Okay? and these situations.

That's why nothing can go wrong because Romans 8:28 says, "Even if something goes wrong, God will work it for good." Okay? God's pruning us. In John 15, Jesus said does the analogy of the vine and the branches.

Okay? He's the vine, we're the branches. As long as we stay in him, we're good. But he also talks about pruning away the things that are not godly in our life.

so that we become more and more like Jesus. And that's what he's he's doing to us for the rest of our lives. He's going to continue to grow us until he comes again. He's going to continue to grow us if we let him in.

If we repent of our sins, if we turn from them and we allow the Holy Spirit to do its work, okay? We're going to grow more and more like Jesus. So I ask you, where are you? Where is God working in you right now?

Okay? As I've been sharing these things, what what thoughts are coming in your head, okay? Of of what sins or what things haven't you repented of yet? What are you still clinging on to deep down in your in your heart?

Okay. Uh what negative um image of yourself are you still clinging to deep down? Okay? Bring it before the Lord.

Bring it up before the Lord. Anything that he's convicting you of, bring it before the Lord. We have the strength to overcome that by the blood of the lamb. Everything can be overcome by the blood of the lamb.

Okay? The Holy Spirit is in you. God is in you. Humbly bring your sin into the light before God.

Repent and allow him to heal your heart and turn and walk in the newness of life that he promises you. Okay? You're a new creation. Don't go back to the old ways.

You're a new creation. All right? And uh Amen. Amen.

You're a new creation. Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for um this lesson here out of Revelation.

Lord, I thank you for coming back 60 years later and sharing with us some parting words so that we can get this thing right as we're heading towards the end times. Lord, I just pray that everyone here who has that conviction in their heart, that they um take it before the Lord, that everyone who's listening on this video, that if there's any conviction in their heart, Lord, I just pray that they'll take it to you, that they'll lay it down, and that they'll rise up and and embrace the love that you have for them. Lord, Lord, we love you.

We know you're powerful to to heal and cleanse and forgive all sins. And you're good and faithful and you will forgive them if we bring them to you. We just rejoice in you, who you are, your greatness and your love in Jesus name. Amen.

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