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Men, we're moving on now to the church in Philadelphia in chapter 3 here. The Bible reads in verse number 7, and the angel of the church in Philadelphia writes, these things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. I know thy works, behold, I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it. Now, we'll go on there in a moment, but I want you to see there that God is the one who opens and closes doors, and that if God wants a door to be open, it's going to be open, and if he wants it to be closed, it's going to be closed. And of course, this is talking to a specific church back then, the church of Philadelphia, but really we could apply this to ourselves. We have a great open door as well here in Arizona, and even throughout the entire world. What does an open door represent? It represents an opportunity, right? And throughout the Bible, there are people that are given opportunities to do something great for God, and in the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul will go somewhere and do some great work for God, but then other times the Bible will say, you know, oh well, the Holy Spirit hindered him from going to this place, or, you know, the Holy Spirit forbade us to preach over in this area, and so then we went over here. God will sometimes close a door in one place and open it in another as a way to just sort of channel resources where he wants them to be. For example, in Jerusalem, you had this concentration of the apostles and the early church, even though Christ had commanded them saying, go ye therefore and teach all nations, go into all the world and preach the gospel, they stayed behind. Well what did God do? God allowed persecution to come upon the church, and then they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the gospel, and God had to sort of close a door at Jerusalem in a sense so that they would go through the open door in other parts of the world. And so God will sometimes open and close doors in our life just to sort of guide us and direct us on the path that he wants us to follow. And here's the thing, I don't sit around agonizing and wondering what is the will of God for my life and stressing out about what God's will is. You know, I spend my time just reading the Bible and understanding the will of God from that perspective, and then I just go through life just making decisions based on what I've read in the Bible, and sometimes I don't really have biblical guidance about a particular decision, you know, I just make the decision. And I pray for God to lead me, and I just pray, God, if you have a preference about this decision, then just lead me to make the decision that you want me to make, and I just make a decision. I don't wait to hear a voice or something, and some people are looking for some kind of supernatural guidance all the time. And in reality, the way that this typically works is that you read the Bible, you follow God's commandments, you do what's right in your life, you live a good life, and in retrospect, you look at it and say, Jesus led me all the way. Even though at the time you don't necessarily know which path to take. And sometimes when we make decisions, they almost feel arbitrary at the time. I mean, even choosing to start the church here in Tempe, Arizona, was somewhat arbitrary. You know, I just wanted to start a church somewhere in the Southwestern United States. And I walked into a certain guy, I was in Bible college, and I walked into a certain guy who was like a counselor for people who are starting churches or looking to take over a church, and he gives you advice and so forth, and I walked into this guy's office with like five options, and I prayed before I went in there. I said, God, you know, I don't really care which of these places I go to, because the what of God's will is more important than the where of God's will. I knew what I was going to do. I knew wherever I go, I'm going to preach, I'm going to go soul winning, didn't really matter to me. So I just said, God, you know, if you have a preference where I go, then just let this guy give me the right advice, because I'm pretty much just going to go where he tells me to go, because, you know, all of these are equal to me. And, you know, I walked in there and talked to him, and he strongly suggested that I start church in the Phoenix area. And then when I came here, I literally just asked the girl at the rental car counter, hey, I'm here to start a church, where do you think I should start a church? And she said, I think you should start it in Tempe, and I'm just like, okay. Now that might seem like a silly way to do things, but and then I did drive over here and check it out, and I was like, okay, yeah, all right, I can work with this. But honestly, I just wasn't really that worried about it. It's not that I was trying to just flip a coin or like, you know, this rental car girl is going to be an oracle unto me or something. It wasn't like that. It was more just like, you know what, I'm just going to do what seems to make sense. But here's the thing, if I'm following God's commandments, if I love the Lord, if I'm praying and reading my Bible, then I just have to trust that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And that if we acknowledge Him, right, in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. So God directs our paths even if we don't really realize what's happening at the time, because even though I just picked the house that I wanted, I mean, you know, then I go to the realtor, hey, I want to be in this part of the city. He showed me like eight houses. I picked one. It just seemed like an arbitrary decision, like, well, this house seems like the best deal. Okay, great. Well, then I went soul winning in my neighborhood. That's where I started. The church was just soul winning in that neighborhood. And here's what's amazing. There were multiple people just right in my neighborhood who became right away members of the church, you know. Even on the very first Sunday we had people come from the neighborhood who still come to this church to this day. And of course Amanda came on the second Sunday. She lived like a couple streets over from me. So looking back, it's not a coincidence that I was in that neighborhood, that Amanda was right there. And so forth. You know, why? Because God was leading. God was directing and everything worked out the way that it was supposed to work out. But I didn't really waste any time back then agonizing and stressing and worrying. You know what we ought to agonize and stress and worry about is just pleasing God with our lives and leave the things that are unknown up to God and just worry about what we do know, right? We know so much of the will of God. So do what you know and then for the unknown, well, you know what, just take a guess. And if you just take a guess, chances are you'll look back and say, wow, God led me because that's exactly what I needed to do. Open doors are opportunities to do something for God. There are all kinds of communities, even countries, places where people are very receptive to the Gospel, where it's totally legal to go there and just do a lot of soul winning and go door to door preaching the Word of God. There are even places where you can just waltz into schools and other huge groupings of people and just preach to giant crowds. I mean those opportunities are there, right? We've gone throughout the Caribbean and even, you know, places in southern Asia where we're able to speak to crowds and places in Africa where we're able to preach to huge crowds and preach in schools. You know, those are open doors that God has given to us. And when God sets before us that open door, we don't want to squander that, want to use that opportunity. Now there are other doors that are closed. We can think about all kinds of places in the Islamic world or places like North Korea or something where it's not an open door. It's a door that is slammed shut in our face. Instead of sitting around and worrying about that, why would we not take advantage of the open doors that we have? Because I guarantee you that if we as God's people were to fully evangelize all the places behind the open doors, then the closed doors would start opening. I do not doubt that for one second. I promise you that if we just preach the Gospel to everybody in all of the places that are receptive, where it's legal, where it's easy, we're not just going to be like, okay, what do we do now? No. All those places would start to open up. But why would God give us seconds when we haven't even cleaned our plate? And we're sitting there worried about some place that we can't get to because it's easy to sit around talking about a place we can't do when there's actually a place that we can do. Okay. We have such an open, we're the Church of Philadelphia, friends, okay, because God has set before us an open door right here. And I'm not even talking about the Caribbean and South America, Africa, although those doors are open to us as well because of technology and airplanes and all the different things that make it easy to travel to those places. But even just right here, we have an opportunity to win people to Christ every single day here in Phoenix, Arizona. People are getting saved because there's an open door. I'm able to get up three times a week and preach the Word of God without worrying about getting arrested or going to prison because we have freedom of speech, we're protected by the First Amendment. That's a huge blessing. That's an open door to just get up and preach the Word of God unashamedly. And you got a bunch of pastors that aren't taking advantage of it. You got a bunch of Christians that are not taking advantage of the opportunity to witness and preach the Gospel and go soul winning. You know, you talk about, oh man, these Muslim countries, it's illegal to share your faith. You're not even sharing your faith in America. So what do you care? You're living in your own private Iran. You are your own little private Iran where you're not allowed to witness anybody. It's an Iran of your own making. Okay. You are living in your own self-imposed North Korea because you're not opening your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel, even though the open door is set before you. But notice the Bible says, I've set before you an open door. No man can shut it, right? If God wills it, the devil and all his minions cannot fight against the work of God. We can go forward at all times. He says, no man can shut it for thou hast a little strength and has kept my word and has not denied my name. Look, all it takes is just a little strength. A little strength. Folks, God is not expecting us to just be super mighty warriors, super powerful. He doesn't expect us to have the faith that can move mountains. He just expects to have a little bit of faith and a little bit of strength. And you know what? It doesn't really take that much faith or that much strength to do what I do as the pastor of this church. I'm not a great man. I'm not a great Christian. I don't have some huge amount of faith or some huge amount of might. I am just an ordinary person with just a little bit of faith and a little bit of strength, but that's all it takes to go through the door. The problem is when we have no strength, no backbone, no courage, no boldness, right? That's the problem because it really doesn't take much. God can really take that little bit that we do have and just that little step of faith and he can really multiply it and do something with it. He says, you have a little strength. That's all God needs. He'll take that little strength. He'll multiply it. It's God's power that keeps the door open. It's not me that has my proverbial foot jammed in the door, keeping it open. God's keeping it open. I basically just walk up and just kind of push the door with my pinky and God is doing the heavy lifting. And so you just got to have a little strength, keep God's word and not deny his name. You know, it's not really that hard. It's not that complicated. In your life, God's just looking for a little, little bit of faith just for you to open your mouth and speak the word of God. Just do a little soul winning, right? Go to church, read a little Bible, do some praying. I mean, do something. And the Bible says in verse nine, Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and know that I love thee. Now where did that come from? Right? Why you got to bring that up all, you know, just out of nowhere? Because apropos of nothing, he just said, I've set before you an open door. What is the synagogue of Satan have to do with that? I've set before you an open door. Oh, and by the way, these Jews, let me tell you something. Where did that come from? I'll tell you where it came from. The Bible says elsewhere, behold, he said, there's a great door open unto me and effectual, and there are many adversaries. This is what Paul told the church at Corinth, right? A great door is open unto me and effectual, there are many adversaries. So reading between the lines here, if God has set before them an open door, what goes along with the open door? Many adversaries, right? There are going to be many adversaries if we would take the rest of scripture as our guide. And so that's why all of a sudden the synagogue of Satan comes up apropos of nothing. Now remember what I mentioned this morning is that the church at Smyrna is the analog of the church in Philadelphia, right? Because if you remember, both Smyrna and Philadelphia are the two churches about whom he has nothing negative to say, and they're in the middle of the chapter. And so these two are analogous. And so he said in chapter two to the church at Smyrna, the one that was enduring persecution and tribulation and troubles, he told them, I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. And he talked about all the persecutions that they were going to suffer and so forth. Okay. Now we're over in Philadelphia, the great door is open. He doesn't specifically bring up persecution, but we're supposed to realize that those two things come together. When you're doing a great work for God, there's going to be opposition. I mean, you think that when we go into these countries and are just preaching to hundreds of students in the schools and we preach to 5,000 students in one week or something, you think the devil just takes that lying down? I mean, we just had a crew that went to India and preached and you know, they're led out of the city by the police, right? I mean, they're taken to the police station, interrogated after winning hundreds of people to the Lord. They're taken to the police station, interrogated, and they besought them that they would depart out of their coasts, all right? They're escorted out of town. Why? Because it's a great door open and there are many adversaries. And so these two things go hand in hand. That's why the synagogue of Satan comes up because the synagogue of Satan, they are the ones doing the persecuting, okay? This is consistent throughout the New Testament. It is the Jews that persecute the Christians, okay? This is the way it is in the book of Acts, all throughout the book of Acts. Even when the Gentiles are persecuting the Christians, it's because the Jews stirred them up and egged them on and so forth, and that's what the Bible teaches. Why is this? It's because Cain hated Abel because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. So Christianity and Judaism are brothers, okay? The parent religion is the Old Testament, Hebrew, Israelite religion, right? That's the parent. And then you have these two brothers. You have Christianity and you have Judaism, right? Two religions have sprung out of that stream. Make no mistake, the Jews of today, they're not following Old Testament, Hebrew, Israelite religion. You don't see them doing animal sacrifices. They're not following Exodus numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, they don't follow that stuff. I mean, give me a break. We could go through lists of literally hundreds of things that they don't follow, don't believe, don't practice. Their religion is a religion that started really after the destruction of the temple, although it's already there in its embryonic stage among the Pharisees. You know, basically you have the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Well, the Sadducees went away because the Sadducees are all about that temple. Once the temple's gone, Sadducees aren't a thing and really it just becomes all about the Pharisees and they're the ones who take over. And Rabbinic Judaism, if you ask modern day Jews, they'll explain to you, I've asked many rabbis this and they tell you that Rabbinic Judaism is a continuation of the religion of the Pharisees and that even in their Talmud, it's quoting all the Pharisees and it even has Gamaliel in the Talmud. You know, the Pharisee Gamaliel, Paul talked about how he's brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. That's one of their rabbis in the Talmud. They are the Pharisees. So that's the embryonic form and then it really becomes what we know as Rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the temple, which took place in 70 AD, okay? And then Christianity also starts in the first century AD. And so therefore, you've got these brothers. Well let me tell you something about these brothers, okay? Judaism is Cain, Christianity is Abel, okay? Christianity is Isaac, Judaism is Ishmael, Christianity is Jacob, Judaism is Esau. And the Bible explicitly makes those comparisons. That's not me just kind of shooting from the hip thinking about names of brothers in the Bible and just kind of just trying to make connections. You know, the Bible literally spells out and says, we're Isaac. And it talks about how they're the children of the flesh. We're the children of the Spirit and just as Ishmael mocked Isaac, those that are born of the flesh persecute him that is born of the Spirit. And so the Jews persecute the Christians, Cain killed Abel, and so on and so forth. This is what the New Testament says. And you say, well, you know, what about the Holocaust and what about these pogroms over here and what about all this other stuff? Look, I'm here to preach the Bible, okay? I'm here to preach the New Testament. I'm not here to give you a history lesson. I'm not here to talk about the history of the Jews being persecuted. You want to know why the Jews have been so persecuted throughout history? Because what goes around comes around, that's why. But that's not really relevant to preaching the New Testament, right? When we're preaching the New Testament, we compare scripture with scripture and in scripture consistently from the four gospels to Revelation, Jews are persecuting Christians. So that's what we're talking about here. That's why this is relevant to say, hey, I know the blasphemy of them which say they're Jews or not, but of the synagogue of Satan. Because we're talking about what was going on back then at the time of the writing of the New Testament. And you could debate or argue about whether Jews have persecuted Christians since then or whether Jews are persecuting Christians now. That's not really the point, is it? We're talking about what was going on in the context of this book that we're looking at when it was written. What is he referring to? And so the synagogue of Satan is the Jewish religion, the synagogue, Antichrist, okay? The spirit of Antichrist, because if you deny the son, you don't have the father. And that is the spirit of Antichrist, according to the Bible. And so the Bible says, I'll make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Why do they lie? Because they're not Jews inwardly, the Bible says. He's not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh, but he's a Jew, which is one inwardly, the Bible says. And it's that of the heart and the spirit, not in the letter. And so here it says they lie when they say they're Jews, they're the synagogue of Satan is what they are. And he says, behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee. Now that's kind of a strange thing to say, isn't it? You know, I'm going to make them know that I love you. Now again, we have to read between the lines here. If God is going to make the synagogue of Satan know that God loves the church at Philadelphia, what does that mean? The current situation is, is that the Jews don't know that. Am I right? If he says, man, I'm going to make them know that I've loved you, it means that they're somehow in denial about the fact that God loves them. Otherwise that statement would make no sense. If the Jews already knew that, it wouldn't make any sense, man, I'm going to make them know stuff that they already know. Doesn't make any sense, does it? Why would the Jews not think that God loved the church of Philadelphia? Because the Jews apparently believe that God only loves them, that God only cares about them and that he doesn't love these other groups of people, Gentiles and so forth. And look, this is what the book of Jonah is all about. Because in the book of Jonah, Jonah doesn't want to reach people outside the nation of Israel with, with the preaching of God's word. He doesn't want them to repent. He doesn't want them to be saved. He's not interested. In fact, as you read the book of Jonah, he just constantly is bringing up the temple, the temple, the temple, and he's always going to be pointing himself toward that temple. And then even when he goes to Nineveh, when he leaves Nineveh, it makes no sense for him to go to the east side of the city. You know, it would make more sense to go to the west side of the city so that he's working his way home. But when he leaves the city, which is a huge city, in order to watch it burn, he goes east wide. Just so that he can be looking at Nineveh while it burns, but he wants to be facing the temple. Because he's obsessed with that geography, okay? He thinks that God is a God of geography. That's why he thinks he can flee from the presence of the Lord, right? He thinks, oh, I'm going to go to Tarshish and flee from the presence of the Lord. Because he thinks that God is only in Israel or something, that he can get away. And it's like he always wants to be, you know, he's in the whale's belly and he's talking about how he's got to look toward that hole. It's like, why are you so into the temple, Jonah? Because you know what you actually find out is where God is at work and where people are being saved is actually on a boat with a bunch of heathens. They all get saved. Nineveh, filled with heathens, they all get saved. You know, Jonah wasn't seeing the big picture that God's the God of the whole earth. He doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, okay? He is the God of all nations, all the earth. But again, Jonah is fixated on just Israel, okay? And so that's a picture of, it's foreshadowing the fact that the Jews are going to be the same way. All throughout the book of Acts, they keep being surprised. Even the Jews that are saved, they're surprised whenever Gentiles are getting saved and they're surprised when, it's like, why is this a surprise when he said, go teach all nations. Go preach the gospel to every creature in all the world. But again, they just keep being surprised. They just can't figure this out. And so here, apparently they think that somehow God loves them to the exclusion of others. And let me tell you something, God does love Jews, but he loves Gentiles too. And God does not love Jews more than Gentiles. God, let me say that again, God does not love the Jews more than the Gentiles, period. He just doesn't, okay? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It's not like when you stand at the judgment seat of Christ, you get extra points for being a Jew. You probably should because you overcame so much garbage that you were taught as a kid. You know, you probably give them a few extra points for that, but I'm saying, you know, God's not a respecter of persons. There's no difference between the Jew and the Greek. There's no difference in the sight of God between Jew and Gentile. And so they think that they're somehow special, well they were special in the Old Testament, but even back then God still loved other people too. He didn't love them more than he loved other people, okay? They were special back then because they were the chosen people in the Old Testament, but they're not anymore. They lost that privilege. The kingdom of God was taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. Now we're in the New Testament, and in the New Testament God's people are of all colors and ethnicities, and it has nothing to do with being a part of a physical nation called Israel. It's not relevant. So he says, I'll make them to come and worship. He's saying, I'm going to have the Jews bowing down to you just to burn them. You know, because they think they're so supreme. Well you know what, we'll see how they feel when they're bowing down to you and knowing that I loved you. He says in verse 10, because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. Now along with the Judaizing doctrine that has become so popular throughout the 20th century and even into the 21st century, it persists among evangelical Christians and especially independent Baptists, this Judaizing doctrine, this Zionist doctrine, this pro-Israel doctrine that puts the Jews on a pedestal. I'm talking about Christ rejecting Jews, putting them on a pedestal, lifting them up as being somehow better than other people or somehow special or chosen. Folks, if you don't have Christ, you're not special, you're just damned. You're just damned, that's all. Well I think there's still a little something for them. No Esau, I already gave all the blessing to your brother, there's nothing left for you. But it says here, after this, because thou hast kept the word of my patience, oh sorry I lost my train of thought, what I was saying was that along with this Judaizing doctrine, what goes hand in hand with the Zionist doctrine of the 20th century, the Judaizing, is this idea of the pre-tribulation rapture. You can't really extricate these two from one another. They go together. Now a lot of people only believe one and not the other, but they're on their way to believing either both or neither. They're just in transit right now. Because it's not a stable molecule, because it's just too unstable, it just doesn't work. It's going one way or the other. Because the two are inextricably linked. Why is that? Because of course there's such a clear scripture that just flat out tells you that the rapture takes place after the tribulation in Matthew 24. The only way around that is to say, oh no that's talking to the Jews. You have to have this Jewish thing going in order to get around those verses and then they have this whole big complicated deal about the preacher rapture and Zionism and dispensationalism. All these things are connected. They all work together and once you debunk one of them the whole thing kind of starts to fall apart. And I find that the easiest place to start with people is to show them the truth about the Jews, show them the truth about Israel, because it's like taking candy from a baby because there are just so many verses that it's just so easy. That's usually where I start and then it's easy for them to get the rest of it figured out. But for me it was the opposite because I figured out that the rapture wasn't pre-trib when I was 12 but it took me until I was 24 to get the Jewish thing figured out, you know, because I was just so brainwashed on that score. But here's the thing about this is that these two doctrines go hand in hand and one of the most favorite proof texts of the pre-tribulation rapture crowd is Revelation 3.10. So it's kind of ironic that these verses are back to back because on the one hand they reject what verse 9 is clearly teaching but then they want to grab onto verse 10 and teach a pre-tribulation rapture. Now sometimes this will be brought out as the clear verse for the pre-trib rapture because here's the thing. It's sort of like Bigfoot or I don't know a unicorn or something trying to find this clear verse for the pre-trib rapture. It's a myth, okay? It doesn't actually exist. And so they're trying to find a clear verse and when you ask a pre-tribber to give you a clear verse there are a handful of weak feeble attempts that they pull out to try to give you a clear verse on the pre-trib rapture and this is one of them that I've been presented with. Typically you'll either be presented with God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ or this. Those are probably the two most popular clear verses on the rapture. Now here's the thing about that. First of all, the tribulation is not God's wrath. Of course we're not appointed to wrath. That's why we're post-trib pre-wrath, okay, but we're not pre-trib. But here's what the Bible says in this super clear verse, because thou has kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. And they say, see there you go, pre-trib rapture right there. There are many problems with this. Number one, it doesn't say that at all, okay, and that's kind of a big problem. But also, you know, first of all he says, I'll keep thee from the hour of temptation. First of all, you have to make the logical leap that the hour of temptation equals the tribulation, what they consider a seven-year tribulation. They make that leap that hour of temptation equals the tribulation period. That's a pretty big jump since the tribulation period is never referred to as an hour anywhere else in scripture. That metaphor is never used, okay, it just isn't a thing. That's a little bit of a problem here. Here's another problem, is that it says, because thou has kept the word of my patience, now they have kept God's word. This church specifically has kept God's word. He said, thou hast a little strength, and has kept my word, and has not denied my name. Well here's the problem with that. If this is about the rapture, then that would mean that you have to keep God's word in order to go up in the rapture. Well here's the problem with that is that the Bible teaches that everyone who's saved goes up in the rapture, okay. When the rapture comes, everyone who's saved will go up in the, you know, the dead in Christ shall rise first, we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so shall we ever be with the Lord. Look, if you're in Christ, if you're saved, and the pre-tribbers would agree that everybody who's saved goes up in the rapture. It's not a partial rapture of just certain people, okay. So what's this prerequisite of having to keep God's word? You know, we all keep or don't keep God's word to varying degrees, but that's not what our salvation is based upon. If I go out and break God's laws, break God's word, if I don't keep the commandments or keep the word of God, well guess what? I'm going to get chastened on this earth, I'm going to get disciplined, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, but am I going to be kicked out of the family? Am I no longer going to be a child of God? Am I going to be just left behind or something at the rapture because I didn't keep God's word, I didn't keep the sayings of this book? You see, that's a big problem and it proves why this verse can't mean that. Now, here are lots of other ways to interpret this verse that make a lot more sense. First of all, one way that we can look at this verse would be, and first of all we need to acknowledge, of course, that it's also about a literal situation back then 2,000 years ago. But obviously we're talking about the symbolic, the figurative meaning of the verse. And by the way, whenever we're talking about figures and symbols, we're on shaky ground anyway, that's why I would always base my doctrine on a clear, rock-solid verse, not something symbolic. Things that are symbolic are good backup, but they're not a good primary source. And so, here's the thing about this, that if we just think about the word hour in the book of Revelation, well a couple other times the word hour comes up in Revelation and it's specifically talking about God pouring out his wrath. You know, it talks about the hour of judgment has come. Now we have a couple verses like that. So you could say, well, you know, this is just a verse talking about people being spared the wrath of God. But I don't believe that, and here's why I don't believe that, because you have to keep God's word to be spared. And all saved Christians are going to be spared from the wrath of God. So this hour of judgment isn't going to be a thing. Here's what makes a lot more sense. If the Bible says I will keep thee from the hour of temptation, does that mean that you have to actually leave this planet in order to be kept from the hour of temptation? I mean, couldn't you be kept from trials, tribulations, kept from death, imprisonment, kept from persecution or defeat without leaving the planet? Couldn't you just be preserved right here on this earth? How about this? Let's say, let's make the logical leap with them that the hour of temptation is referring to the tribulation period, right? Let's just grant them that, okay? So if this is referring to the tribulation and God says, because thou has kept the word of my patience, who's he talking to? Every saved person? No. Obedient Christians who are actually keeping the word of God. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them to dwell upon the earth. How about this? How about God could spare his people from persecution, tribulation and trials, even as they go through them? Sort of like, what about the children of Israel in the land of Egypt where they're in the land of Goshen and when the plagues come, they're preserved. Do they have to leave the planet? Or could they just be preserved? Do they even have to leave Egypt? No. They're preserved in Goshen, right? You know, we are Goshen and when God brings whatever upon this earth, whether it's judgment, not talking about obviously the great outpouring of God's wrath, but what about other judgments that come before that? When God brings whatever the judgment, whatever minor or major judgment before that, God can protect the people who've kept his word. When trials and tribulations come, God can protect. How many times in the Bible do we see God's servants who keep his word and don't deny his name being protected and kept from the hour of temptation and being protected? What about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? What about Daniel? What about Jeremiah the prophet? When the whole nation is going through temptation and he is kept safe, does that mean he's beamed out? Is he warped out of there? No. He was in the muck and mire in the bottom of an outhouse, but he made it. He survived. He got through it. God preserved him. God made sure he didn't starve and that he was able to eat and get through that difficult time. And so they're making a, you can see how they're making a lot of logical leaps here. This verse says nothing about the rapture or the tribulation specifically, but this is their clear verse on a pre-trip rapture. It can't be about that because it's literally saying you've kept God's word, so I'm going to protect you. I believe that if I keep God's word, God's going to protect me. I mean that makes sense, doesn't it? That's consistent with scripture. If I acknowledge him, he'll direct my paths. If I keep God's word, he's going to keep me safe. He's going to protect me. If I disregard the word of God and I just going out and living my life, however, there's a real good chance that some bad things can happen to me and that God won't protect me from them. Right? Like I'm, you know, I was joking about the road trip, I'm going to be on this road trip. I'm driving 6,700 miles and I'm going to be driving to all these different churches preaching in July. Well, guess what? There are some dangers out there on the road and if I pray, Oh God, please keep me from those dangers. And then it's, and then I just die and then it's like, well, I, you know, I took you out of the earth so you could be kept from those dangers. Couldn't God keep me from those dangers without removing me from this planet? Couldn't he keep me from those dangers just by giving me safety on the road? Now what if I had committed all kinds of wicked sin and, and, and broken God's laws or something, you know, could God send something like a car accident or some other catastrophe to harm me as a punishment and not keep me from it and be like, well, I was going to protect you, but you know, I'm just going to let this happen. Now here's the thing, we've never want to look at someone else and judge them because here's the thing, these type of things do happen to even the godliest of Christians. Car accidents happen to the godliest of Christians, sicknesses and injuries happen to the godliest of Christians. It's wicked to be like Job's three friends and start falsely accusing someone. Well they're not right with God, that's why God allowed this to happen. You don't know what God's doing in people's life. A lot of times he has other purposes and plans on a grander scale and a lot of times God will take these things that look negative and work them out for good and all things work together for good to those that love God and then we're called according to his purpose. So we never want to judge someone else. You know, we'd want to examine ourself in that situation and it's both. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes bad things happen to bad people, okay? And so we don't want to jump to conclusions. The whole book of Job teaches us that, doesn't it? And so here he says, you've kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation. You know, I would trust in God to protect me out on the road, on a long drive, or in whatever other situation, I would rely on God to protect me because I've kept the word of his patience, whereas if I hadn't, you know, I wouldn't really expect God to necessarily protect me in the same way. So that's actually a biblical principle that we could trace throughout scripture where people who disregard God's word, sometimes that hedge of protection is removed. And sometimes it's removed for no reason like in the book of Job. Even though Job's doing everything right, the hedge is removed. So we don't want to use this to judge other people. But you know, sometimes the hedge is removed because we're not in the will of God. We're not keeping God's word. And again, you know, there's plenty of example of that throughout scripture. And so this verse, I just wanted to cover that, that what it's actually teaching is that if we keep God's word, God will protect us. That's what verse 10 is teaching. There's nothing more to see here, folks. Don't make this your linchpin verse on end times prophecy. This is the key to everything right here. No it isn't. Okay. It's just saying, look, if you in general keep God's word, you'll be protected. And specifically, I believe that those who are faithful to Christ through the tribulation will be spared in most cases. And that's why I believe that if the tribulation happens in my lifetime, I'm not going to go ahead for the hills. I'm going to stay and try to be as faithful to Christ as I can right here. And I'm not going to stop preaching. I'm not going to stop soul winning. I don't need to go in a bunker somewhere. I don't need a bunker because if I had a bunker, I wouldn't use it because I'd be out doing God's work unto the bitter end. Okay. And here's the thing. I believe, and you're like, oh, you're going to die. No, I don't believe so. I believe that if it happens in my lifetime, I believe I'll make it to the end. Now maybe I'm wrong and I get smoked. Well then you can talk about that at my funeral, but I won't really care at that point. I won't be offended. Enjoy a Rubio's okay. So I'll be feasting on heavenly manna as well. And so the Bible says here, you know, I'll keep you from X, Y, and Z because you kept my word. I mean, that's just a biblical principle through and through. He says in verse 11, behold, I come quickly. Hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown. And you know, that's kind of a sobering verse when he says that no man take thy crown. It shows that, you know, you can earn rewards, but that, you know, if you don't hold fast what you have, you know, someone can take your crown because, you know, you got to endure unto the end to really get the big rewards, you know, and if you're one who bails out part way or quits part way, you're not going to get the full reward. You know, you're not going to get the crown that you could have earned. So he says, hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown. Don't let anybody in this world bamboozle you out of your crown because whatever they're offering you in this world is not as good as what God has for you up there, the treasures in heaven. Him that overcometh, again talking about being saved, will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God and I will write upon him my new name. Now here's the thing. It's a new Jerusalem, my friend, that comes down from heaven. Now why would a new Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven? Because the current Jerusalem is going to get smoked. That's why. Okay. Because otherwise how, you know, how are you gonna have a new one come down? Because the new one replaces the old one. It says the new testament replaces the old testament. Not talking about the books. Obviously the whole Bible is relevant. Genesis to Revelation. When I say the new testament replaced the old testament, I'm talking about the new covenant replaced the old covenant. We call those 39 books the old testament. We call these 27 books the new testament, right? But there's also an old testament, like a covenant, an actual testament that was made with Israel at Mount Sinai. The Bible calls that the old testament, the old covenant, right? And then we use that term to just kind of refer to all the books surrounding that. But when we speak literally about the old covenant, we're referring to a deal that was struck at Mount Sinai with Moses. And when we specifically refer to the new covenant, we're talking about a specific deal that was struck with humanity when Christ died on the cross for our sins, right? The old covenant was made with Israel, the new covenant is made with Israel and also with the rest of the world. And so therefore the new testament, the Bible says, in that he sayeth a new covenant, he had made the first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. Well, in that he sayeth the new Jerusalem, he made the first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away, right? The current city of Jerusalem, the Bible literally says in Revelation that it is Sodom and Egypt. Go if you would, I'll be done with this, but go to Revelation chapter 11. Revelation chapter 11. And the Bible says in verse number 8 of chapter 11, and their dead bodies, talking about the two witnesses, shall lie in the street of that great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified. Now we all know at what city our Lord was crucified. He was crucified at Jerusalem. In fact, he even predicted that he must be killed at Jerusalem. He said, it's not possible that a prophet perished out of Jerusalem. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, now which kills the prophets. And so Christ is crucified at Jerusalem. The current city of Jerusalem, the Bible says, is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. If I were preaching today in 2023 and I referred to Jerusalem as Sodom, I would be biblically correct to say that. I would be biblically correct. If I were to refer to Jerusalem in some way and just refer to it as Sodom and just say, you know, that city of Sodom over there, right? You know, Trump wanted to declare Sodom to be the capital of Israel, right? If I called that city Egypt, that would be biblical. If I called the Jews Ishmael, that would be biblical. If I called them Esau or Cain, that's all biblical. Right here it says that Jerusalem is spiritually, when God looks down, he doesn't see it as, oh the, you know, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great, yeah, that's what it was back then. That's the Old Testament. But what about the current city of Sodom, of Jerusalem? Is God looking down and he's just pleased and he loves it and this is my beloved city in whom I'm well pleased? No. He's looking down and he sees it as Sodom and Egypt. And we know that that's the city that we're talking about because it's also where our Lord was crucified, which is the city of Jerusalem. So our capital city is not Jerusalem. That's why we don't need to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. And look, I'm not against you going sightseeing anywhere, but you know what? I think that going to Jerusalem is about as spiritual as going and seeing the pyramids in Egypt. So just pick the one that you want. You know, you want to go visit Rome or Athens or you want to go visit Madrid, Barcelona. You want to go to, you know, Manila. Yeah, Manila, all right. Hey, it doesn't really matter because you know what? There's nothing special spiritually about Jerusalem except that it's Sodom, except that it's Egypt. You might as well go to the real Egypt, you know? The food's probably better because there's too much vegan food in Israel. But I digress. Now, I've never been to Israel, of course. I haven't. And I'm never going to go, or at least I don't plan on going. And you know, I don't plan, I'm not worried about it, you know? I mean, I'll go during the millennium. I'll check it out. But the point is that New Jerusalem is our capital city. You're not on some kind of holy ground over there, right? And oh, you know, this is where it all happened. But you know, really, it's in our hearts. It's in the Bible. Save the money on the plane ticket, you know what I mean? Go to some sandy tropical beach somewhere and just bring your Bible and that'll be your pilgrimage to the Holy Land. You know what I mean? So we need to get our doctrine biblically correct and not listen to the Zionists and the pre-tribbers and the Judaizers. It's a bunch of false doctrine. It's all connected, the dispensational junk of the last few hundred years. We need to stick to what the Bible actually teaches and realize that God has set before us the open door. Let the enemies rage. Let the heathen rage. But no one can stop us. We can only stop ourselves, but honestly, if God be for us, who can be against us? Let's pray in that word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this message to the Church of Philadelphia, Lord. Help us to be that Church of Philadelphia with that open door before us. And Lord, whatever adversaries are out there, Lord, please keep us from them. Protect us and help us to just have a little strength, just have a little faith, just have a little backbone, Lord. And we know that if we do, you'll do the rest and we're thankful for it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.