Keep On Faithful to God, No Matter Who Governs 7-4 Message

Keep On Faithful to God, No Matter Who Governs                               Capt.  Kelly Durant   7-3-16

Rev 2:10 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.

2. Tomorrow is the 4^th of July! How many of you will celebrate? I know most of us are very thankful for this country!  Comparing its constitution and middle class to other countries, it does have one of the best trifold balance-of-powers systems ever created and it has worked well for many years, which is a testimony of God’s blessings!  But as with anything there is a problem when things get out of balance: It is always up to God’s people to bring people and the misguided nations back to God! Do you think we are in danger of losing our independence?

Thank God for the Bible! We can span all of history and see the result of nations rising and falling due to their obedience and worship of God, or their lack thereof. A large part of the Old Testament covers the warnings of the prophets concerning Israel and their tendency to degenerate from the worship of God to the worship of Satan adopting the local cultures which had abominable practices. Sadly, as Christians we see a rapid degeneration and alienation from God in just the past few decades. Our materialistic technological culture is programing people to conform to destructive agendas but when you sew to the wind, you reap the whirlwind!

I think every 4^th of July we should evaluate where we stand as a nation! We gained independence from oppressors, but are we still able to maintain that independence based upon how righteous we are as a people?  In the time of Israel’s Kings, all it took was one bad king to pervert an entire nation and the consequences were always that God allowed the backslidden people to be subjugated as servants to another nation to learn their lesson. We must wake up and recall how God’s promises were based on “If”, “If you obey”, “then”, you will eat the fat of the land”. Only a continued obedience will cause a continued salvation and reaping of blessings!

3. Independence is a wonderful thing! I recall when I was young I was happy to be 18 and move out and be independent. Finally no curfew hours! But then I discovered independence will cost you: it costs you becoming the full one responsible for paying the rent, bills, insurance, etc.! When you want freedom you have to pay the price of fighting to keep it. Maintaining freedom has a high price and people that are lazy, fearful, and faithless are in danger of become slaves!

So what happens if your freedom is being taken away? What happens if you serve under a king or dictator but that king becomes a despot, unfair, hypocritical, greedy, (even murderous) and indifferent to attend to the needs of the people, especially the needs of the poor? Almost always revolution begins! And many people think they want a revolution! Those that demand radical change before the dictator were destructive reckless haters who just wanted to see others cut down to size but the outcome of thugs having the power is always atrocious!  

If you watch the news, the Venezuelan people right now are in chaos and turmoil! When the workers and common people cannot get justice or food and basic needs, we all know that rioting, looting, and killing come next! We must always pray for this nation and other nations where the women, children, and poor live extremely oppressed! They make $15 per month now! In the 1980s it was close to $2,000! How quickly the God-less fall into misery!

4. Today we are discussing the crown of life, which many artists over time have depicted as a halo, but how do we gain one? In life all different people face many different challenges when it comes to being persecuted or not. We do not know the future except for the prophecies of Jesus. Most Christians have become aware that a terrible future is coming when the armies of the anti-Christ rise up to subdue all nations.

Actually according to the book of Daniel the structure of the world in the end-times will be of 10 major powers, and to dominate them all the anti-Christ will only need to conquer 3.  Daniel 7:24 The ten horns are ten kings Who shall arise from this kingdom. And another shall rise after them; He shall be different from the first ones, And shall subdue three kings.

Most people never ever think about power and the changing of powers, they are too distracted entertaining their selves! Babylon, a world power during Daniel’s time, was thought to be invincible, but one night they saw the hand-writing on the wall! The rulers were slain and the Medes and Persians became the new world leaders, overnight!

5. I want to tell you a Christian story from Russia when an anti-christ group of people took over that country. The people were tired of the oppression of the Czars but they then gave the power over to some oppressors that were much worse than them. This story is to encourage your faith that no matter if you are called to die for Jesus, no matter of you lose your freedom or there is a change of powers, you can maintain firm in your faith to obtain your own crown of life and eternal bliss with Jesus in heaven! You can be free at last from this world’s power hungry radical hellish people!

In the time of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, there was a great persecution of Christians and multi-millions were murdered for the cause of imposing atheism and communism! Sadly, we almost never hear about this historical fact! Christians, even if prohibited, will always get together to pray, as we do on Sundays because we worship together and love each other!

Christians everywhere also sing hymns and praises and you can almost imagine some small Christian church in Russia singing, “Onward Christian Soldiers”... Christians live happy lives in the peace of God, but always in history there are those of Satan who gain power, those who hate Jesus and his love and peace. The Red Army soldiers showed up and banged on the doors and commanded, “Open Up! Meetings in Communist Russia are absolutely forbidden!”

“All of you are under arrest!” Not knowing their future, the men, women, and children were ordered to march in the cold on the snow not knowing where they were being lead. They marched for about 3 hours singing and praising God as they went. Then they realized they had come to the small lake just outside their town. And then the Red Soldier commanded, “All of you take off your clothes, if any of you want to live, just deny your faith and come back and we will give you back your clothes.”

6. No mercy was shown to anyone and the people were left out on the ice to freeze to death. One by one they froze and dropped to their death. Men, women, and children were trembling and praying as they fell over but the Lord was with them giving them dying grace.  But then suddenly there was one of them that started running and shouting, “I deny my faith, I deny my faith!” The guards laughed at the freezing fool! “Give me back my clothes!”, he yelled. Then suddenly one of the Russian guards rapidly took off his clothes and he said to the man, “Here, take my coat, and take my hat too. I am going out there to die in your place”.

Shocked everyone looked at him and he shouted to them as he went, “As I watched each person fall  and I saw as if it were a giant hand from the sky come down to put a crown on the head of each of the ones who died, And just as the hand was coming down to you, you ran! So take my clothes, take my gun, I want to get that crown!’

This true story helps us to visualize the crown of life Jesus Christ has for us when we go to heaven! In the scripture it says: “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” We must believe it! No matter how we lose our lives one day, we want to be found faithful in Jesus! I pray no revolution happens here, but nowhere is there absolute safety!

7. Today too many people take for granted their Salvation and freedom. We must remember the requirement, the command from Jesus Himself is, “We must be faithful unto death”! We don’t know what death we will have, but let’s examine this story a bit deeper.

Let’s imagine the future, as in all the recent post-apocalyptic movies, and it is the year 2020 and the Terrorists and Communist have gotten together to use nuclear bombs blowing up Washington DC, New York, and L.A. (and maybe even Miami) and then they invade this country and make an order that no one can meet in the Christian churches (which always happens under Satanic control!). Imagine with almost every church closed there would still be a few that fear God over man and they would remain open. Imagine now that you are one of those persecuted Christians that is getting escorted out of here right now to be shot and killed!

Everyone always wants to imagine their selves as the strong one, as the one that would die for his faith. Tell me, did you think that about yourself? Did you think, oh, I will be the strong one and die for my faith? Obviously it would be a shame to be the one who would chose to deny his faith and run for his life. Because what we do here on earth is recorded by God forever.

8. In the verses from Revelation of today the brothers in the Smyrna church were going through a persecution, and persecutions resulting in imprisonments and deaths which were common in the Roman times as they are common now in Africa, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and in almost every Arab nation daily. You can investigate and find out that there are dozens of thousands of modern day martyrs for Christ every year! Also, there are currently 6.5 million refuge homeless running and roaming from the current persecution worldwide!

Here we have the appearance of being secure but lately everyone is discovering that our security is not so secure after all. Our authorities are not the same as what they use to be. We are vulnerable due to internal corruption! Also, the mainstream news also does not report on the death of Christians worldwide but there are hundreds and even thousands killed every day.

What Jesus had to say was this, these people that persecute you, they are of the synagogue of Satan. He commands, “Fear not!”  10 days of prison or 10 years really is not the point, the point is we are commanded to fear not and to be faithful unto death so we will get the crown of life!

You may already be asking yourself inside, faithful until death, how can I make it? That may be a long time from now. What should I be doing? I think the best philosophy to live by is that of the rehabilitated alcoholics. You know they have a saying. They wake up in the morning and they tell their selves, I will be faithful today to not drink. They do not plan tomorrow or next week, they are just planning on being faithful today.

And they can tell you with pride,“1,134 days ago I stopped drinking and I have been faithful”. Could you as a Christian calculate and say, 40 days ago, or 4,057 days ago I accepted Christ and I renounced my sins and I have been going down the faithful path of love and service ever since? 

9. Faithfulness and getting the crown of life requires obedience even unto death.  Imagine that Russian soldier that was a sinner. He repented at the last minute, and gained the crown of life even though he had little time with his life left except to be a testimony as a martyr to his comrades who were horribly wrong to kill the harmless Christians. And contrastingly the other Russian, the one that had gone to church all those years, the one who must have thought, I am saved because I sing to God, I give my money to the church, I sacrifice my Sundays and go to church, did not have what it took to get the crown of life being a witness.

The Faithfulness that gets you the crown of life is not a power that comes from tradition and the church, Faithfulness is a way of life in Christ that is renewed daily by obeying the Word of God and the Holy Spirit up to the final end.  

Fear, tribulations, and death, and anything can be overcome when we have our lives centered in Christ everyday. We must be like Paul as he said, “I die daily” 1 Cor. 15:31 and by dying daily we are burning up the bad that is in us and in the end there will be nothing more to burn up. We will already be refined as pure gold out of the fire.

10. Always consider the fate of the unfaithful, the ones that think they are fine with God but they have no fruit or proof in their lives.   Rev 22:11-15 11. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Notice that part about telling lies, there are so many liars today it makes you furious, and God’s anger is kindled against them! Liars go to hell for rejecting righteousness and for not living in the truth which originates from God. And I fear for the souls of those who aid and abet liars, those who willing have a blind eye concerning the horrible sins of others, who become guilty by being accomplices and conformers.  

Those of you here today, when you leave this church I pray will never have to be arrested or be condemned to die, but you remain free to go back home, but those that don’t care about God’s messages, the indifferent or the willfully rebellious, will never obtain the fruits of the spirit which are love, joy, peace and longsuffering, etc. nor gain a crown of life. There is no peace here, nor in the hereafter, for the wicked. But try to imagine yourself like the faithful Christian martyrs on the ice or like the Russian Soldier that got the crown! Death is no defeat, it is what brings us our glory! Most people of the world are never able to choose in which country they want to live, or choose if that country is free & independent, godly, or despotic.

But no matter the nation or the time in history God wants people to be faithful people; people who love and serve no matter even if it costs them their lives! These are the people that will get a crown of life! You do not want shame at the end of your life! So start being more faithful today! Do you die to yourself each day so you will be able to pass the final test?

We are going to all face Jesus one day but only if we have been faithful will we get the crown of life! That crown for you is eternal life and glory plus the rewards and authority we will have when you and I reign with Jesus forever and ever after His return.

Salt & Light : Are You Really?

Salt & Light : Are You Really?                              Kelly Durant 10-19-03

Did you notice you got something interesting with your bulletin today? A candle with some salt! This is for you to take home to remind you that you are salt & light in a perverse and wicked generation! Look up..        Matt 5:13-16

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Do you remember the last time we had a family night and everyone dressed up? I have been thinking about salt and light for some time now and I want us to reflect on it’s meaning. What do we usually use salt for today? For flavoring food, right?

But let’s do what we always do when we reflect on the Bible, let’s go back to the cultural context. Before the days of refrigeration, what was salt used for? It was a preservative. You could put it on meat and make jerky. In Bolivia I use to make my own jerky; you cut the meat thin and then you cover it in salt and let the sun dry it out. Have you ever done that?

Or maybe you didn’t live without a refrigerator like I did several months one time! Or maybe you have done this if you have worked on a farm and a cow dies; how many of you have ever buried a dead cow? Well, the way we did it was we would pour a lot of salt on top of the body and it would prevent it from smelling and decaying. Do you realize that is a parallel to us as Christians, we are in a dying, decaying, putrid world, and we are the salt to preserve and save.

But what happens when Christians do not do their job of saving, preserving and shining?    Phil 2:15

15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

My concern for you and myself is, that we must ask our selves are being an outstanding example of the love of God? Do you think you are an outstanding Christian? We are going to discuss some of the points in which the church in the US and, or I should say Christians are failing in.

+Did you know that the divorce rate in the church is the same as it is in the world?

+Did you know that Christians often suffer from depression?

+Did you know that Christians are often dishonest and do not have clean hearts?

All of this probably does not surprise you because you have seen some of it here. But what is the solution? It is not any worse here than it is in any of the other churches; No! And how do I know that?  I have asked other pastors in other American churches and they have many of the same trials that we have. We are not any worse or any better.

But the solution is to stand up and shine foe your Christian values. Christians should not be trading relationships and spouses like they trade cars! There are devastating consequences to this and believe me I have spent hundreds of hours with dozens of disturbed and agonizing people who have suffered a divorce or abandonment.

Well, here I want to tell you the solution, here, amoungst those of us who are salt and light, is the place where these hurting people should be able to come and grieve and cry. They should feel the confidence they are loved by God and they must know they are loved by God because they can feel a sincere love from us!

Do you know how many people have been driven away from Christianity by the Christians who are dead candles by their unloving, condemning, ‘well I told you so’, attitude? When someone sins in the camp and they are hurting, it is not time to throw stones, it is time to do what Jesus did, to go down and hug that person and let them know they can have a new life and not continue down that road that is almost getting them killed!

Like with Mary Magdalene! And Everytime we hear a story about someone doing a wrong thing, it is not time to start getting proud like, well, I would never do such a thing, but it is time to check your own heart! It hurts God when we sin and fail! And it also hurts us and those around us!

Despite how the Word of God brings life, and holy living guided by the Holy Spirit brings peace, there are still too many Christians out there depressed and that is against the word to worry about the morrow. Look up     Matt 6:34

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

I think we can all feel what people have inside them and what a poor testimony when the desperate people of the world come into church and find the people inside no better off than them selves! There are Christians that have never practiced all they have read. Christianity is not a belief, it is a lifestyle! We must practice our faith! (repeat)

John 14:27

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

What causes depression is worry about the material things, or internal conflicts over not getting all you lust for and desire. What causes depression also is bitterness in a heart that cannot forgive someone who wronged them in the past. Also, some people come to church but inside they have bitterness against God over their situation which is humbling them and that is what their pride may need to be humbled!

The only way out is to fight and we must fight like Don Quixote de la Mancha and conquer our obstacles and inner fears! Prayer and the Word in the Bible really work if they are sincerely applied!

And lastly, if we will be salt and light, we must maintain a high standard of honesty and purity. I don’t know about you, but if I tell a lie, or do a wrong thing, I lay awake at night unable to sleep with that thing replaying again in my head until I confess if to God and go back and right the wrong I have done! If your conscience is not clean, you will not get your prayers answered, much in the same way a parent will not want to take his son to the movies when they know the son that has stolen $20 from his wallet and acts like it never happened!

The only way to be right with God is to be in communion with Him, reviewing all you do at the end of the day if it was done right or not! To burn bright, you must be in the light! To be salty, you must be near other salt granules! Ask your self, am I a Christian others love to be with? Or do people avoid you because you preach at them but they feel you don’t really love the?

Ask yourself, am I full of the spirit, full of joy, full of love, looking for ways to serve others? Many times it has happened that the spouse who is a Christian, married to one who is not, will preach and correct and condemn them for years for not seeking God, but only after all of that fails do they try serving them with love; and it never fails that a loving, meek, and serving spirit wins others more by actions than by words! Are you being salt and light?

Soldiers, Hardened and Free!

Soldiers, Hardened and Free!                                     Kelly Durant 

2 Tim 2:1-4

2:1 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Let’s learn about Soldiers, and it is from these verses in Timothy that we get all the symbolisms of the Salvation Army.

How many of you have ever lived through a Military Coup? I have about 3 times in Bolivia! We had to stay inside for a week and eat what we had stored and listen to the news of the next dictator all day! The neighbors would tell you about the ones killed. I have had machine guns pointed at me and been frisked down several times in my life. It was frightening but I felt God’s spirit close!

But I want to tell you that in this country, and in yours, there has already been an evil military coup which happened thousands of years ago! Satan has taken over all the land and corrupted it, and he has filled it with violence & gangs, perversion and porn, poverty and oppression, and disease and death! There are only two armies, God’s and Satan’s!

Eph 6:12-13

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

And soldiers, when you have a hard time standing for your Commanding Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, remember, when you can’t stand, then kneel! Remember also you are not in this war alone! I sincerely believe and hope all of you are praying for each other during the week! If you take one thin stick, you can break it easily, but many sticks bunched together cannot break!

This earth was created to be under the authority of God, but currently it is not! Jesus gave us the command to extend the Kingdom of God and that means giving your friends and family the truth even if they hate you, laugh at you, and persecute you! In verse 3 “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”, is commanding us to be strong when others are against you, and it is sad that there are too many weak Soldiers!

Remember if Satan cannot stop you from being a Christian, he tries to make you a worthless, weak compromised Christian!

We have the command (see verse 4) to not be involved in the world as others, we are to make war on evil by doing good, by doing all that Jesus commanded!

Also, each of us has the responsibility to be overseeing what the other does so we prevent good Soldiers from falling into the enemy’s traps! Soldiers know death is a reality and they should stick together!

The Christian Soldiers of all churches are only a minority group but they have the status of a Soldier because they are willing to march out there in their neighborhoods, as Jesus did to love the unlovely, to heal the wounded, and to preach the truth of the gospel!

It will only be after our final battle with Satan in the end of the world in Armagedon that God will hit with the last Coup to regain what was His from the beginning! All of the souls of men that chose to be on his side! We are God’s soldiers and the only way to fight this war is to be disciplined resisting temptation, and standing for the right cause, the winning cause telling as many as you can about Jesus!

In the Salvation Army in the early years in London in the 1870’s and 80’s there were several dozen Soldiers of the Salvation Army that died due to rocks thrown at them in the streets. At that time there was prostitution of girls age 12, drunkenness by the majority, child labor exploitation, and horrible days.

William Booth, our founder, decided to use the pen instead of the gun to fight his battles and he wrote a book that became a best seller in His day; It was called, “In Darkest England, and the Way Out”. Everyone wanted some relief from the crime and horrible conditions and His solution was to take Jesus to the streets, preaching and helping serve the poor, and that method still works as we do today! If there was ever a church that seemed like an army going out to battle in history, it was the Salvation Army!

We often admire the martyrs for giving up their lives and dying for Christ, but unless we are willing to take orders from His Word and be obedient to Our Lord right now everyday as a Soldier, then we are not going to be ready to die for Him if that time comes!

Did you know there are a lot of Christian Soldiers in this world that have gone AWOL! That means that they were supposed to be on a duty, on an assignment, but they decided they would rather go somewhere else and have fun with the temporary pleasures of this world. Or they tried to run away from God.

Who knows what happens to people who do that? Jonah tried that, God gave him a mission, and he learned the hard way you cannot run from God! If you are called, God will not let you sleep until you run to sign up to join the fight for the right!

The problem is, our enemy wants us to think it is better and easier to go down the easy road, but the easy road is not easy at all, it is painful to reap the sin we sew! Only the Lord’s road is easy and His burden is light. Serving God may not always be easy, it wasn’t for Jesus, it is not easy for any on us, but in the end Jesus and all of us gain an eternal glory that shines forever!

So what is the essence of 2 Tim 2:4?

The Lord wants absolute love, dedication, and loyalty even if you have to suffer to prove it! In the armies of the world the men suffer a lot of cruel treatment of their bodies and minds, and if they do it, how much more should we do it for Jesus who is worthy of our love?

The very first commandment is to Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind! But if you give your loyalty to men on this earth, they will always let you down! But now we are all blessed to have Jesus as our General!

You have a Commander that is all loving, all forgiving, all-powerful, and he knows where you will best serve Him but you must obey His call! If we do not choose to be governed by God, then we will end up being governed by some other tyrant!

Just think how many people are stuck on this earth all of their lives as slaves to men and not to God! We must fight with the truth to free them! And so many lower classes are being abused and abused and we as brothers must fight to help them!

When people ask you what does the SS stand for, tell them Service & Salvation. The Army has always been famous for their shelters for the homeless. Before the slogan was SSS which is soup, soap, and salvation! The truth is in most countries there are very few institutions that care for the sick, homeless, and orphans, and the ones that do are almost always Christian!

It is up to us, as God’s soldiers and followers to bring the good news to everyone! Jesus started his ministry with these verses from Isa. And they were His mission and they are to be ours too! Listen to how Jesus expects us to fight as Soldiers..

Isa 61:1-3

61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

You do not have to have a uniform to be a soldier of Jesus! A Uniform is only an outward sign of an inward dedication, like a baptism, but it is God who knows our hearts! I am here and you tare here because we are convinced we have a wonderful ministry with many good works which prove our love & dedication to the Lord!

Any organization is only as good as their people, and I am very proud and happy with what I see in each person here today! You are the chosen ones to represent your Lord, so march forward to the prize of the high calling of God! Prayer…

The Praise Worship of God: Is Music Helping or Hindering?

The Praise Worship of God: Is Music Helping or Hindering?        Kelly Durant

Matthew 26:30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Acts 16:25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

2. One of my sons installs audio visual equipment and internet systems in churches, universities and corporations.  He has gotten to know hundreds of people over the past decade and he has shared with me some of his conversations with interesting people. Today I will share an experience of a person he met who was a semi-famous praise band leader in a mega church. I will not reveal the name of the church or the name of this person but that is not what is important, what is important is the lesson.

This young man had fame, a good salary, and had sold many CDs but he wanted more than just music in his life so he went on a mission to Africa and stayed 6 months serving God. I am sure he was changed after that! Upon his return he discovered he had been replaced by his church so he was forced to move on and start his own worship filled church.

He had saved up quite a bit of money before so he opened up a type of megachurch in another city banking upon the main attraction to be the amazing and modern worship music and praise band he was famous for. He was copying what he had learned from the other mega church. How do you think that worked out? His want-to-be church flopped and he lost all his money and he was left to start all over again.

3. He said he felt like God burst his balloon but he was glad that He did! He said that now he knows God in a way He had never known Him before: He is not just singing about Him but depending and trusting in Him now. He is trusting not on his talent and treasure to bring him his purpose in God now but rather on obedience, service, and his closeness to God for new direction.

What a lesson, right? It reminds us of the verse in Mark 8:36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? It is unusual to think that a young worship leader, who seemed to inspire dozens of thousands to worship God, could have been in real life a shallow person not fully converted.

Thank God he had the experience of serving God in Africa! These types of mission trips can change a person forever to help them wake up to the facts of how contradictory it is to think one is worshipping God if doing it by praise only. While we are entertaining ourselves in the church with all the modern technology, there is a whole world out there with billions of people suffering from a lack of having their basic human needs such as food, water, clothing, shelter and Salvation for their souls through the gospel of Jesus Christ! The modern day church has put too much emphasis on entertainment and techno toys and forgotten about holiness, service, and what God expects from the Christian as defined by Jesus’ words!

4. Who would agree with me that today too many churches put too much emphasis in the worship of God through music and technology? It is true we all do get inspired by a creative song performed in church, or heard on the radio or a CD,  or seen on YouTube but the inspiration is only a small part of living the holy life. It is not all of what God intends for us as worshippers.

As a matter of fact only a few months back a famous person in a famous megachurch praise band let millions of people down by expressing that he was more accepting of the current cultural trends of this world than he was of the Word of God!  What a disgrace! It goes to show we must always remember that we can never place our worship, adoration, and loyalty to people whom we know nothing about! They are just saved sinners like you and me but there is a problem if they are not willing to live free from sin as an example of Jesus transforming love!

Psalm 118:8 It is better to trust in the Lord Than to put confidence in man. There are so many people today that go to churches but they are more devoted to their blind selfish emotions or famous people or how popular the church is rather than to how Biblically obedient they are! And when it is a church without all the ultra-modern trappings of technology modeling the mega TV church, they feel they do not need to commit because the church is not a glorious one but it is just a humble mission and therefore unworthy. Worship is more than a song with smoke and mirrors, and more than a feeling which comes and goes!

I recall one time at the other Corps one person called me up one night with the music blasting on the phone and he said, “Do you hear that? Now that is worship, this is how I worship!” I got the message, what he meant was, I worship the trending music of the rich and famous, and what you offer in your praise band is inferior compared this! (This person had expressed many times before adoration to certain trending preachers and music so this was another attempt to impose his tastes belittling ours). People with such pride and ignorance are stumbling blocks to others who are learning about Jesus, the church, and mission!

5. Don’t misunderstand what I am communicating. I think it is great that there are great praise bands out there, that there are some amazing people who inspire me and others in song. It is encouraging to worship with the extreme varieties out there, but a song in the end is only an emotion enhancer God has designed as a hook to get his people to tune into Him. A hymn is like a warm up for the real work out, the music of God does not replace the study of God for obedience.

In our verses of today we find it only mentioned once that Jesus sang a hymn with his disciples. It does not say that he sang every time before His teaching, so how frequently Jesus and his disciples sang is anyone’s guess. Today we have traditionalized and institutionalized worship into a certain cultural music mold and we must question ourselves, are we being counter-productive with such an emphasis? Also, are we open to how other cultures praise in song? I have seen minorities and majorities be very closed minded on worship styles, sad right?

What we do know is God’s word put into song is powerful! Acts 16:25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” Imagine how Paul and Silas despite all the punches, bruises, humiliation, hunger, and other horrible things they felt while inside that jail still praised God in song! I bet they got some converts right there and they were inspired despite the persecution. You can’t pin a good man down!

6. So what can we say about Salvationists and their bands? Big brass bands were the high tech audio visual in the 1800s when they started! There are several quotes by our Founders Booths that express we should be taking advantage of the cultural trends and reapplying them for God’s use and music is a must.

I have mentioned it before, but England then, with all its drunken sailors and serious alcohol problems in the 1800’s had serious social family disintegration problems as everyone would hang out at the local pubs and listen to the then popular band music, and to some degree, this still happens today.

It was clever to create alternative praise brass bands to attract those in the pubs out into the streets to hear a new song and then to get in a sermon as well. Even some of the old Salvation Army hymns are music of old drinking songs but with rewritten Christian words! There were no copy-write laws then and today we know the hymn but we do not have a clue what the original worldly words were! Brass bands still have their respected place in this world and they involve many people at once to praise God in beautiful harmony with a distinct variety of treble and bass harmonies.

7. Here is a problem with music, you can get burnt out on it if it is too repetitive or too frequently sung, or you can feel lost if you cannot join in if it is too new and the words and melody are not familiar. It is hard to have a balance to make everyone happy when it comes to music! But in the end, a praise song, or a hymn is a song for God, so the way I see it is this way, it doesn’t matter if I like the tune or the choice of band instruments playing it, what matters is I must be open to letting it feed my spirit since it is dedicated to God. The old and new are valid!

I am like you, I like certain songs better than others and that is normal as our cultural backgrounds and past experiences influence our tastes. I only have a problem with people who have a problem of being stuck in one style only, being in a rut which is inflexible and selfish pushing for their likes only.

We do not have that problem here in our Corps, but in some churches the fight over styles is tragic! What was intended to unite the body (singing together), has sometimes become the dividing stumbling block because some ultra-young or ultra-old persons do like or want to accept the fact that they should just join in no matter the style and worship in a differently and just be encouraged that God is worshipped and praised.

8. So what are the 2 times we praise God (in song, or in any form of worship)? When we feel like it and when we don’t feel like it! Music for me being an only lonely child growing up was always a good escape and cheap way of entertainment. I use to have the radio on non-stop when the transistor ones came out when I was a kid. I then at age 14 got a reel to reel tape recorded and I recorded off the radio all the hits for several years. I got in my 8 hours of music daily but today music has been replaced by the internet and iphone apps occupying 10 hours of everyone’s time. 

Playing guitar was one of the best pass times ever and I still love it. I got to practice in several bands when young and make new friends that I never would have met otherwise. All my life God has opened many doors through music! I use to play Beatles and gospel songs in all the popular places in Lapaz, Bolivia, and I loved meeting Ambassadors and all kinds of people. When my kids were little, I took them for years to sing with me in rest homes.

But here is something I see as a tragedy, the church should have been able to involve me with Christian music when I was young, but they did not have that offer. The tradition in that church was only to have a pianist and an organ player and no one else could play and only hymns were allowed so this explains why secular music overshadowed praise music for decades! Thank God the Salvation Army offers music attractive to most of the youth and many have escaped the gang life because of being involved in our bands! I’ve heard a few dozen testimonies about this!

Finally in the 1990’s it seems praise music modernized. I thank God that today The Salvation Army offers a variety of praise bands catering to the cultural appetites of the particular audience at hand. I am glad there is an acceptance of other styles and cultures and where else can you see girls in uniforms with tambourines? Sacred dance, spoken word, and all modern styles are accepted if…if they elevate you to worship God! We need to stop the worship of famous Christian performers as they can get corrupted with pride like those of the world do.

9. To conclude, worshipping God is done in many ways but what God expects is for us to not follow a rigid model of music or any system that has been made culturally or traditionally acceptable, but rather do all things so that is generates in us a life of obedience and holiness! And what we do should awaken a love for God and love for our brothers and sisters!

We must seek to love Him and serve Him, this is worship! There is the reality that music is not an instrument that will cause a person to love and obey God more! God feels what we feel and he created us to feel love and waves of euphoria and songs can help but sadly in this fallen world of continual tragic news we can’t always be made happy. And don’t be like someone I knew that after everyone makes great comments about how they felt the Holy Spirit, that the sermon was convicting, that music was uplifting they contrarily comment that everyone and the church is dead because they felt nothing! The obvious is what is dead is their relationship with God!

Songs will usually make us feel good but there are times when not even a song can bring a person consolation, but we keep going anyway and eventually the Holy Spirit takes over if you let Him!  Prayer we might consider to be even more important than praise in song because Jesus taught quite a bit about prayer, but nothing regarding hymns! Jesus gave no instruction on how often or in what style to sing hymns!

10. We conclude that God wants our worship to be sincere and real! He wants our heart, our undivided pure love and holiness to be what motivates. Why sing or do anything if it is fake or heartless or spurns criticism and not doing it in a spirit of truthfulness for the love of God? No one is required to sing, but everyone is required to worship while in the house of God!

John 4: 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

God must not be worshipped only in a certain place (or only in certain churches with popular bands) or worshipped in a certain cultural style pre-programed into our limited minds, He must be worshipped with our hearts, minds, and soul! Real worship implies a life of obedience in love! Worship is not just the repeating of a song or the having a good time in a meeting, worship means loving God and His Word to the point his Holy Spirit takes over! You can overcome any limits your personal preferences dictate; it’s not about you, it’s about God, amen?     

Have You Had A Desert Experience?

Have You Had A Desert Experience?                                                                        Kelly Durant

Luke 4:1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into[a] the wilderness

2. On the way home with our grandkids we had some hours to kill in the car and we were looking for things to do to make the time pass. We found some self discovery psychological tests online and we each did them and had fun talking about it. I thought it would be good if you did one of the tests as well as it is connected to the message today.

Imagine you are walking in a solitary desert all alone and then you come across a cube. (pause) What is it made of? How big is it? Take a mental note. Now you see a ladder. Where is it in relation to the cube? What is it made of? Now you see flowers near the cube. How many are there?  A storm is coming in now. Do you see it near or far, as a danger or as something passing? This is just a piece of the test.

Now let’s find out about it. The desert is your journey in life. The cube is your ego. How big is it? Big or small? What is it made of? And the ladder near or far? It describes how close your relationships are to you. And how many flowers were there? This represents your children, or the number of people you take care of. Your fear of the future is revealed in the danger of the storm. If you are curious my cube was as big as a house made of steel, and the ladder was made of aluminum and it was on the front of the cube so you could go on top, and the whole thing had hundreds of flowers all around it! And I saw the storm far away and not a threat! Strange mental games, right? What were your answers? (See this on my Facebook)

3. Here is a reality, life with God will lead you into the wilderness, or desert at some time in your life! Do you realize how many people had to go into the wilderness because God lead them there? I don’t think any of them really wanted to go because as human beings we always seek comfort. But whether they wanted it or not it was a process that was needed for them to understand the deeper things God needed to teach them so they could be rewarded and broken into a vessel that is useful for God’s service.

Adam and Eve were forced into the wilderness out of the garden. Physically and metaphorically all of humanity is still in the wilderness and not home yet! Then after Adam there is Abraham. At a certain point in his life God spoke to him and told him to travel across unknown places.

Genesis 12: 1 Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country, From your family

And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2. I will make you a great nation;

I will bless you, And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.

3. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you;

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So for God’s purpose and blessings, whether we decide for it or not, may include that you and I will have to move one day! And who was the next person in Genesis to be forced to leave into the wilderness out of the city of Sodom? Sodom was a comfortable prosperous place, but it was full of sin and violence compared to many huge cities today. It was Lot and his family! And then there is another one who had to go into the desert sent away; it was Hagar, who had her son Ishmael. And what about Joseph who is next on this list in Genesis? He was sold into slavery by his brothers and was taken through the desert to Egypt. And after the children’s children of Abraham spent a few hundred years in Egypt how did they escape the idolatry and slavery? God’s man Moses called them out and took them out into the desert!

4. So God’s Word from the beginning describes how his children literally have to move from one place to another, and often move into a desert place for some time for a purpose, and this begs this question, how does this relate to you and me in our life? Can you describe a time in your life in which you felt like you were in a wilderness? A place and time where the heat and survival to live was so intense it was a life changing purge? Or maybe you are feeling that now!

God’s word since the beginning has recorded these personal stories of faith journeys in the wilderness for a reason. It is for each one of us to learn and mature by the life threatening experience because we usually do not do that on our own. We must ‘feel the heat’! Each of us have been, or will have to be in the desert at some point in our life in order to learn what God wants us to learn. Some people go through it young as Joseph, while others go through the desert when they are old, as Moses did.

Sometimes we get frustrated with each other as many people tend to be impatient, rude, prideful, unsympathetic, and unloving and these characteristics are what we saw in Moses and many others before their purging desert experience. The desert purge will change you because you are in a place where you will die if you do not depend on God! The quicker you and I learn the better!

5. So how do we relate the desert wilderness experience to Jesus as in the verse of today? It is interesting to note that even though He was divine, Jesus still had to learn to dominate His human nature and He had to learn that alone battling it out with Satan.

Here is a verse that always troubled me because I always thought, well, if Jesus had to suffer to learn, how much more I must suffer then to learn as well! Hebrews 5:8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. I always pray, “Lord make me a quick learner of your will!”

The basics of this experience that Jesus had was to allow Him to go through all the situations and temptations that all of us must go through which are temptations to seek for bread alone, (implying the selfish desire for survival or seeking this world’s goods only) forgetting to worship God the provider who provides in His time. Next is the temptation to gain power and riches which Satan can grant by worshipping Him but you lose your soul in rebellion and to hell in the process. And finally the temptation to test God to show off is spiritual pride. Apart from life’s tests add in feelings of extreme discomfort when the heat is on and these include hunger, thirst, loneliness, anger, and depression.    

6. When I was a young radical passionate Christian I always had in the back of my mind that I too should get away and fast for 30 days as Jesus did in order to connect with God. I always wanted to be just alone with God but I never really got the chance as Jesus did it. I have fasted a few days at a time though.

And then one day God seemed to speak to me in that still small voice that I was not Jesus, so why should I want to copy Him in everything? My life and yours may be on God’s path but it would be spiritual pride to copy Jesus exactly if imitating Him is just to show off we can be exactly like Him. But we never will be as holy, as strong, as loving as He was! But we do need to do our best!  I think you might be pretty sick after 30 days of no food! And traumatized as well from the isolation, heat, and mind games!

We do seek to imitate Jesus in our lives and I have seen miracles after praying for others, but no one of us can ever be on the deserved respectable level of Jesus in His passionate dedication to God’s will. But we try! We obey to be holy as He is holy! But here is what God showed me then, it was almost as if He said, (in my thoughts) don’t seek a desert, your desert will come, but not the one you imagine, but one I will show you. In other words the purging, the maturing, the time of feeling all alone and having to only depend on God alone will happen but it will happen in God’s time but in the time and place where God will take you.

7. But what do we learn from Jesus? He was called to a mission from God, got baptized as a symbol of His start down that path of mission. And then the heavens opened for all to see that the Holy Spirit would dwell with Him and all of us, and at that moment the Holy Spirit was leading Jesus.

Luke 4:1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. This was the path God had for Him and God has a distinct destiny for everyone, but you have to be sure that it is His Holy Spirit guiding you. How do you know? Believe me, you will know!

When I was called as a young man to serve God I was a confused mess wanting to escape this world after learning about all the hell and injustices that exist with hellish people and wars dominating this world. But after I decided to serve and follow Jesus I suddenly felt peace, joy, love and an unexplainable desire to help others and to give them what I had found, which was a new start in life with Jesus in the center of everything!

8. So while serving Jesus the desert in my life came after about 1 ½ year later of serving Him. The first 6 months I was in the clouds with Jesus. The next 6 months after that in Brazil the people were amazingly receptive to the gospel and I loved life. But then after that there were days in Bolivia in Lapaz where there are closed cold hearts that I literally cried day after day for a few months out of frustration that no one would convert to serve Jesus full time. Everyday I would pass out gospel tracts and pray with someone the sinner’s prayer but no one wanted to forsake all their miserable life, poor possessions, and shallow life to follow Jesus. I felt like all my labor was in vain and that I was alone in my fight but I was not going to quit! 

I often felt stupid inside trying love people who would not respond. I felt like a fool and then I read in my Bible that that was exactly what Paul felt as well. 1 Corinthians 4:10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!

This is only one of the mini-deserts I have had to cross. But a few years later going back to Lapaz for 3 years I had a better experience. There are moments in our lives that we will feel like we are lost and spinning our wheels, walking in circles in the desert as the Israelites did with Moses because they were not mature and ready for the promised land. I prayed, “God get be out of here, change me totally to be what you need me to be!”

9. In our study of holiness you will recall Samuel Brengle, the Salvation Army theologian who wrote more than a dozen books on holiness, and how did he gain so much insight into God’s nature and change into God’s man? He went through several long and trying deserts. For one he was very well educated when he came to The Salvation Army as a young man but the founder, William Booth, chose to put him in charge of shining the hundreds of shoes of all the Officers that went out preaching in the muddy streets of London.

He must have felt humiliated, confused, and angry, but he was not going to quit, he remained faithful and took it like a test that he was going to pass and after months of being a nobody, God was preparing to use him as a great somebody. But later, after passing through the purge of Cadet training while in one of his appointments do you recall what tragedy happened to him next? An evil person who did not like street preachers dropped a brick on his head from a tall building!

That injury almost killed him and sent him to the hospital for more than a year and half! Did he ever doubt and tell God that he was finished because serving him only got him into situations of suffering? No! He used his time alone in that hospital bed to write about how to live in God’s perfect love and holiness. His insight and writings live on, and his life was changed into something supernatural forever after that.  

10. So what desert have you been through? The desert is not always a physical one but it is a spiritual one, it is a time when you are tempted and tried, a time when everything around you seems meaningless and is just sand, uncomfortableness and nothing.

Here is something I know, the desert is not forever for the Christian! The desert for Jesus was for 30 days and the desert for some may be for much longer, even years. In the case of the rebellious Israelites under Moses it lasted a lifetime but most of us are not that rebellious! When you feel a trying time coming with loneliness and overwhelming heat, it is time to seek God as never before! Today the Holy Spirit talks to us to teach us about where to be in God’s will but we must ask God to mold us and remake us as we with discomfort learn to listen and obey His Word.    

The sad reality is many people in this world, even some Christians are too preprogramed by the culture and system have and have opted for the bread of materialism instead of faith, this world’s power positions instead of God’s future kingdom, and they tempt God by acting invincible with over confidence that God will just do for them all of what they desire. I wish that everyone would have a wilderness experience so they could turn their entire life around and be close to God! That is our goal… holiness, intimacy, and love dominating our lives and love for our amazing Savior who proved victory over evil is possible! 

Smyrna: The Persecuted Faithful Ones, And You?

Smyrna: The Persecuted Faithful Ones, And You?                           Kelly Durant

Part 2 of 7 Churches Series

Revelation 2:8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, ‘These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life: 9 “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”

2. How many of you have ever been to prison? Wait, stop! You don’t need to raise your hand as for some it is a chapter past that they would like to forget, and we really don’t have to talk about it! I have visited prisons a few hundred times in my lifetime, but to visit someone or to share a testimony and the Bible in jail is much different from actually being in jail waiting for a sentence to end! It is a very hard thing to endure and we should pray for prisoners more often! Many people convicted actually are innocent and no one should judge anyone because incarceration could befall anyone! Don’t exempt yourself! Throughout time many millions of Christians have been wrongly imprisoned due to evil people unjustly persecuting them!

I remember in one prison I use to visit in Santa Cruz, Bolivia there was an American guy inside for drug possession and I would usually go visit on Saturdays, but sometimes during the week. The interesting thing was he was always with his girlfriend beside him and I asked him, “How often does she get to visit? He replied, “Everyday, all day long”! I thought to myself, now that is a dedicated girlfriend, the kind I want! It turns out that in Bolivia you can have family spend the day and even night with you all the time while in prison! That is quite different, right? But most prisoners around the world do not get that privilege! Ancient prisons were cold stone caves with nothing inside, whereas jails today have beds, a toilet, and water!

Today we will explore the bittersweet place of Smyrna, the second church in our study of the seven churches in Revelation.  Smyrna gets its name from the spice of myrrh, and as you know that is a bitter spice with a sweet smell for burying the dead.  Smyrna was a city rich in medicines and many items as it was on the main trade route through ancient Greece. Today the city still exists with the name Izmir, in Turkey.

3. “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, ‘These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life” Let’s go deeper with this phrase, that Jesus is the Alpha, and the Omega. What does that mean? It means that he was there in the beginning when all of creation took place and He will be here when all ends. Jesus was the first being with God, and Jesus will still be the last being around after heaven and earth pass away. He is the eternal spirit that no created being can ever control, kill, or dominate, the first in the spirit bloodline of God.

It is curious how He addresses the ones in Smyrna as the one, “who was dead, and came to life”.

In ancient Smyrna the Greek and Roman Gods dominated the religious relm. The Romans in Smyrna worshipped a god that was claimed to have died and then rose back up again, his name was Dionysus. He was the god of wine and festivity, supposedly born of a virgin on December 25^th, and due to these coincidences pertaining to Jesus, some Christians prefer not to recognize our traditional celebration of Christmas believing it is pagan. But on Christmas we do not celebrate, Dionysus, or A.K.A. as Bacchus (god of vice), those are myths that are long gone: we worship Jesus! Christians must always replace the truth where a lie has existed!

Notice today that most of you probably never even heard of Dionysus because he was a lie, an invented imposter, whereas Jesus resurrection is an enduring truth! Why did all the Greek and Roman gods fade from the cultures? Because their stories about their gods were exaggerations invented and created to justify their carnality, mischief and debauchery! A person that lives in holiness and truth sees through the lies and hypocrisy of false gods, and flees away from the damage that these false pretenses and worldly lifestyles cause.  Smyrna was also rebuilt in the Roman times after a few hundred years of disrepair, so dead and revived was the city’s theme.

4.  “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich)”, What is curious in this verse is that the Lord is honoring and recognizing their works and suffering. He is telling them how rich they are spiritually despite their material poverty.  Our riches are in heaven and we may be looked upon as poor here and now but what does that matter? Being poor is only for a few years but being richly rewarded for doing God’s will is forever!

Now the difficult part, “And I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan”.  The Jews in Smyrna were the direct ones responsible for putting the Christians in jails! Jesus when here on earth identified from where the evil proceeds and called it out, as with the Scribes and Pharisees and again from the spirit realm He still exposes sin! Imagine the shamefulness that the heaviest persecution and imprisonment was not even coming from the drunken orgy practicing Romans or Greeks, it was coming from the Jews!

How sad it is when the people who are supposed to be the representatives of God become the representatives of Satan! That is the worst unforgiveable, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, criminal hypocrisy possible invoking God’s fierce wrath and indignation! It is like a doctor that seeks how to kill you, not save your life, or a cop that instead of preventing violence, does acts of violence! Satan is real and his agenda is to kill and destroy all of God’s good people.  Take note, however, not all Jews are evil, so discernment is always needed for judging each case.

5. Vs.10 “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days”.  How many of you have ever wanted to know your future?  What if Jesus told you you are going to jail and you were going to suffer for your faith in the near future? The way things are going with the perversion of laws, this is a very real possibility!

That kind of news would not be pleasant at all! Well, as they say, sometimes the worst fear is a fear of the unknown so sometimes it is better to know what will happen so you can prepare yourself mentally and spiritually. In general, all of Revelation is an unsettling warning of what humanity will reap for its sins as they progressively praise and welcome anti-Christ people. The aggressive anti-Christ devils in the present world are corrupting our culture’s morals to distort that evil is good and good is evil so people will be ready to welcome Satan incarnate himself when he forms an oppressive one world government. Hitler tried this, but it was not time.

Researching what it means by being in jail 10 days could imply the time the Romans took to   

Incarcerate and bring to trial an individual, which was usually a speedy process. The Romans did not incarcerate and retain so much as we do today as dungeon jails were not so numerous then. They usually gave you a quick trial and freedom if no accusations were validated, made you a slave for a debt payment, or gave you a sentence of death for other crimes such as theft, murder, or speaking against the corrupt Caesars. Still even today death sentences are enforced in a majority of nations over one having the wrong politics or worshipping the wrong god!

So when something negative is on the horizon in your future, whether it be for 10 days, 100 days, or 1,000 days, in the end it will all not matter at all once you see Jesus in heaven! The basic point is trials in our lives will come and go but they are only for a season, for a limited time so we must stay focused on the end goal of heaven, that all suffering will all pass away.

6. Vs 10 “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life”. I will share with you something, this verse has convicted me to keep on serving Jesus up until now! I have been in a few life and death situations and I have taken the attitude that no matter when my death comes, I want to be found being faithful in Jesus! I want a crown of life! I know you want one too, so stay faithful even if you get killed in the process! Leaving all this hell behind for heaven is worth it! Sadly, I can tell you by seeing it myself that many do not remain faithful to the end!

Imagine how utterly foolish it would be for a person to train, like an athlete practicing for years to run in a big race, only to start running in the big race but then after going 2/3rds of the way suddenly quitting.  How wasteful and foolish, right?  Life is like a race and some of you are ahead and some of you are behind the place where Jesus wants you to be spiritually! People are watching. Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”. Ask God right now, “Do I have any sin in my life impeding my ability to serve as expected so I make it all the way to the very end?

1 Corinthians 9:24 “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.” Death, or the finish line, will reach every one of us, but only what you and I have done for Jesus will matter! You can gain the whole world and lose your soul! Only a few in this life become as the Cesars, Trumps or Clintons, rich with mega billions living the high life, but what is their legacy with God?  Where is your and their soul headed is the dire question? If a life lived is not one of sacrificing yourself for others as Jesus did, then the life after this one will have nothing for you! God will not pass out a crown of life to those who have proven their selves to not be faithful to Him here and now. All of the abusers, the hoarders of wealth and power, will be horrifically surprised to learn that the first (as they were here) will be last when they arrive then and there. Those without a crown of life will discover that a second death awaits those who are unfaithful to God!

7. 11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” This verse seemed to always make since to me but after having a deaf son to raise, I sometimes questioned, why would God require an ear to hear?

I have come to peace with God that this has several implications. For one, it means that if you have ever been exposed to this message by hearing it or reading it, then it means you should not just let it go in one ear and out the other! In other words, you are responsible for this message once you have heard it and you are expected to react upon it by taking action by obeying all of Jesus words.

In most past cultures, deaf people were not taught to read, so the only way they could have learned about what Jesus taught and said would have been with sign language, but the development of sign language is actually something that has occurred only within the past few hundred years! Even up until in the 1970s there were people promoting that deaf people should not be allowed to use their hands to communicate but instead should read lips. Do you know how hard it is to read lips when you have never even learned a base language to begin with? What a frustration and outrageous discrimination! How horrible it was that the deaf people were usually just put away in insane asylums up until recently, or had to live as beggars as in Jesus day! Those without ears to hear suffered greatly!

Jesus is also speaking in a figurative way implying that the ear, which is a detection device for the entrance of words so their meanings can be discerned, is prompting that everyone should be paying attention!  But Jesus’ messages are only spiritually discerned, and many hear and do not understand.  Matthew 13:13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. People have selective hearing!

8. You and I understand Jesus words clearly because we have obeyed Him, accepted the Holy Spirit, and experienced what it is to live persecuted for repeating His good news! His words are real in my life, and I do understand most everything He taught. To tell others about Jesus is to honor Him, and to announce Him as the Savior of the world who grants eternal life to those who believe. Some people tune Him in, while others tune Him out, and every person ever born will either reap life or death as a consequence concerning how they responded.

 Vs 11 “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” What does it mean hurt by the second death? We must overcome by being full of God’s goodness and not overtaken by the evil offered in this world. But since when did we learn that we live in a world where we can die two times?! Death for no one is ever pleasant, even though I have known of a few sweet people who have died in their sleep. But basically this communicates that when we are released from our bodies that things are not over at all! There is no rest for the wicked!

Jesus taught us that He would resurrect us unto life, so what this implies is everyone still remains as a conscious being after leaving the body, but some will go on to life, while others will be punished or perpetually hurt by an incarcerated existence or second death known as hell.  My grandmother was a nurse and she told me stories of people dying screaming, “I don’t want to go! I am burning, no, no please!” She wasn’t trying to scare me, she only told me this when I asked her to tell me about how people die. The second death is real, and if we have an ear to hear about it, then we must react accordingly, in choosing God’s will! 

9. I do not know your future, or the future of the church Corps of Hialeah, but Jesus does! Jesus did directly reveal the future to certain ones, as He did to the seven churches in Revelation, and He sometimes reveals events to those who pay attention. But all of Apocalypses is a Revelation of the future of the destruction of mankind who will choose to submit to Satan instead of submitting to Jesus loving way of living in God’s holy peaceful love preaching His gospel. God will not stop man’s evil acts until the final reaping. The end is near and historical events always repeat. Prophecy often gets fulfilled in several different instances and intensities.

We do not know if you or I will be persecuted and killed in the future, or if we will just die of old age as the majority of Christians do, but what we do know is we must be overcomers and faithful until death no matter what we suffer! We must be holding onto the testimony of those who were faithful in the past despite poverty and jail, as those of Smyrna!

Abiding in God’s will is the only safe place to be! Some of those in Smyrna were destined for a difficult time due to Satan’s hate of God’s people. But consider the following, a shorter life could be a blessing in disguise when you consider being here on earth is not all that pleasant experiencing all the suffering that goes on. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:6 “So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord”.  Never fear your future! You will have God’s power for the hour when it comes! Be overcomers, faithful until death!