The Revelation 2:7-9 | Episode # 1015

August 29, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 2:7-9

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day,

especially today in Jesus name.

He who is near. Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This is the same thing Jesus said.

He's just saying it in a different way. You've got ears to hear. Let him hear. You got eyes to see. Let him see. What he's saying is, if you can hear what I'm saying to the churches, do it.

To him who overcomes, I will give the tree of life.

What he's saying is, I'm giving you eternal life if you do what I've said here and hold on and remember your first love and keep on not having.

I'm not going to call them out on Facebook, okay, but bureaucracy,

he says, which is the midst of the paradise of God.

Notice. Did he say it was in the midst of the paradise of God?

The tree of life, he says, which is present tense. In the paradise of God.

Just something to log in your brain. You know what I'm talking about?

Just one of them hidden nuggets that if you don't log it in, you'll miss it,

he says, the paradise of God, which is the Garden of Eden.

That tree's still there.

Just the thought to the angel of the church of Smyrna right now. This is the most horrific church there is, okay? And not horrific for their character, but horrific for what they had to go through.

This is the persecuted church of really the late first, second and third century,

okay? This is the church that Nero burned the Christians for light on the city. This is the church there were where they were taken to the forum and.

And fought the lions and fought the wild animals. This is the persecuted church,

okay?

It's. It's a church that's persecuted by the Romans. Is church that persecuted by the Jews,

okay?

So it is the persecuted church.

And it is.

They're rough,

okay? It's the church at Smyrna.

He says to the angel of church, Smyrna Write these things, says the first and the last. Now, what he's saying is,

look, you in a bad spot right here where you're at. But remember, I'm timeless.

I'm eternal.

So it may seem bad in a moment, but I'm on both ends of this thing. I'm everywhere.

You don't have to just keep.

You're. It's okay. I'm here.

I don't ever go away. I don't leave you, nor forsake you. I'm. I'm right here.

He says these things.

He says the first and last who was dead and came to life. So what are the two attributes that he tells them about? Well, he talks about his eternality,

right?

And then he talks about his power to take that which is dead and make it alive. Resurrection power.

You following me?

I'm eternal and I have resurrection power.

I'm eternal and I have resurrection power.

Now, he's going to introduce himself over and over, but he's going to give them different aspects of his character, nature to meet the issue that they face in that church at that moment.

That's why God's got so many names in the Bible. Why? Because not one human word could ever describe the glory of who God is. And each name that God gives himself in scripture or tells you about in Scripture speaks.

Speaks to some aspect of his character which you need to know when you need to walk in,

okay?

And so he says, I know your works,

tribulation and poverty. And the word for poverty means, you ain't got anything.

Poverty can mean you've got very little or you got. The two words for poverty in Greek are, you have very little or you ain't got nothing.

All right? And that's very Southern way of saying it. But these folks didn't have nothing. Nothing. Not a thing.

Nothing.

Okay?

Now notice it's intentionally in parentheses, because in the Greek, it. It. It does kind of in the actual original Greek, it's a little written. What do you. It's almost like it's written so that you.

It's a whisper.

Okay. He says. He says, I know your works,

same works, your work of faith,

your tribulations,

and you ain't got nothing,

but you're rich.

It's really. What is how it said. He said, but you're rich gonna be all right.

He says, I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are synagogue of Satan.

Now, we talked about these. These doctrines that were coming in,

okay?

This church that he's speaking to is dealing with the Judaizers. Okay? And I told y' all that the book of Galatians is written to this group.

Let me see here.

Galatians 2:11, 2:11 through 3, 6. And I just want to read it to you so that you'll kind of get an idea of what it's talking about.

Am I in the right place? Yes. 2 11, 336.

He says. Now, then Peter had come t Antioch,

and I withstood him face to face because he. He was to blame. This is the Apostle Peter, and this is Paul speaking.

For before,

before certain men came from James,

he would eat with the Gentiles.

But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision, meaning those who were Jewish.

So he quit eating with the Gentiles and just started eating with the Jews,

he says. And the rest of Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

Now, if you want to talk about calling somebody out,

that's just straight calling them out right here in the Bible.

That's some hardcore stuff.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all, if you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?

What he's saying is you were living like a Gentile.

Now you're trying to make the Gentiles live like Jews.

By the way, this whole book's about this Galatians.

He says, knowing that a man is not justified by his work, by the works of the law,

but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, but.

But by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified.

What he's saying is, if you're trying to be justified by living by the law,

it won't be justified.

But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ,

we ourselves are also found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin?

No.

But if you're trying to be justified by the law, and then you're found to be sinners, or what are you,

you're a law breaker.

Now, some of y' all going, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, this is how it works. If you're going to be justified by the law, by the Old Testament, then you've got to Keep every.

Every part of the law.

It's not like our laws today.

If you are. If you're charged with burglary.

These are the elements of burglary.

These are historical elements of burglary. We like to change them every once in a while. Entering the dwelling place of another with the intent to commit a crime therein.

Okay?

All right. That's the historical law against burglary. So I have to enter now, that doesn't mean that I have to stand inside. All I got to do is stick my hand in the window, and that's entering.

Okay?

Are you following me?

The house of another or the dwelling of another, meaning it's somebody else's house with the intent to commit a crime therein, which is evident by my actions,

that's burglary.

Are you following me?

Now, if I come up to the front steps with my shotgun, you open the door, I tell you, give me all your money. I take the money. I didn't burglarize you at all.

I robbed you, but I didn't burglarize you.

Okay?

So I can't be found guilty of burglary because I didn't burglarize the house. I didn't enter with the intent to commit a crime or any. And I stood on the front porch and took it from you,

okay? So if they indict you for burglary, I'm going to get you off. If indict you for robbery, you go into jail,

okay?

That's the way it works.

That's seriously how it works.

That's how I win,

okay?

Because if I don't get it exactly right, I win.

All right?

Don't I, Renee?

Yeah, I do.

All right, Now I want you to listen to me. That's not the same with the law of the Old Testament.

If you trespass one part, one little part of the law,

you broke it all, and you're a lawbreaker.

So if you're trying to be justified by the law, you can't be, but you got to be justified by faith in Jesus Christ.

And by the way, in the Old Testament, they were justified by faith also,

right?

Because who is the man of faith? Abraham.

Right?

And the Bible says he believed God and has credited him as righteousness. So there's a righteousness in the Old Testament by faith, and there's righteousness by the law. And he says, if you're going to be righteous by the law, you better live the whole thing.

But if you're going to be righteous in it, righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ. Well, you probably gonna mess up some.

That's what he's saying right there.

For if I build again those things which I destroy, I make myself a transgressor.

He's talking about trying to build the law back up after it's been set aside for faith in Jesus Christ. For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.

I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

So what is my faith based on?

Not by rules, but by the finished work of Jesus Christ,

If I do not set aside. If I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, that then Christ died in vain.

Oh, foolish Galatians,

who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?

Remember, Jesus is the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified.

This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing of faith?

Meaning, did you receive the Holy Spirit by works of the law or by hearing and faith, or hearing of faith?

Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are now being made perfect by the flesh?

Meaning, are you trying to perfect yourself by the flesh, or are you still living by the Spirit?

Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain?

Therefore, he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does it. Does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted him for righteousness.

And where does he go back to?

All the way back to Abraham,

to the beginning of the plan that led to the law that led to the Promised Land.

So understanding what he's saying is,

he's saying that this group of people, this group of people that were known as the Judaizers,

notice,

he says they're trying to take them back to the Law. And he calls them what a synagogue.

This horror stuff right here. He calls them a synagogue of Satan.

Hmm,

that sounds like something I don't want to be in. How about y'? All?

No,

he says, I know your works. Tribulation, poverty. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Now he's saying, you're going to suffer.

And they did.

As you go today, I pray that.

The Lord will bless you and keep you that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.