Intro to the Seven Churches

So for those of you who are curious about the Uganda trip, Vern has made it over there. Vern and Bruce got over there, I believe, a couple of days ago and had a good, safe trip over. No issues, no delays or anything along those lines. And I guess they've already had just a load of people be so grateful to see him. He had a 75-year-old Muslim convert come up to him and thank him for being there and thank him for teaching about identification truths and things like that. He was very happy to learn those things and I guess it got to burn and he had some tears and so it's been a good trip already. So just thank the Lord for that.

A couple things up here. This week's handout is here. Last week's handout is here as well. And then for any of you who don't have a binder, you're welcome to grab one. It has the schedule for what we've got going on this year in Revelation as well. So that's in there.

Now like I was saying here a moment ago, what we're going to do is an introduction to the seven churches in Revelation. When I first sat down and looked at this plan, I said, well, why are we doing an introduction? Why not just jump right into this? Why not just get into the churches and see what we're doing? And the more I looked at it, the more I said, this introduction is good.

It's going to show us a couple things to avoid as we look at these verses. Some misconceptions that have come up over time that these verses have caused or people have used them to create. We'll also see some good patterns in the language and in the verses as John is writing to these churches.

The next thing we want to remember is how Revelation is jumping from a heavenly scene to an earthly scene and it's going back and forth between these heavenly scenes and earthly scenes. In the first chapter we were really in a heavenly scene. John's vision of Christ and the lampstands and everything that we had going on there in that first chapter, we're defining that as a heavenly scene. And right now we're going to come back down and we're going to look at an earthly scene. These next two chapters will really be an earthly scene dealing with people, churches, right down to where we are at here on earth.

And remember, in that heavenly scene, Christ is walking among the lampstands, and these lampstands are the seven churches, as the verses tell us there. So the first question that I have for you guys this morning, and I'll ask some questions, is why these seven churches? Why do you think it was these seven churches that God chose to, that the Lord Jesus Christ told John to write? Some of these things are things that we saw last week. In particular, Vern had a map, and I don't have slides this morning, you'll have to forgive me for that, but there was a map that showed the location of these seven churches. All of the seven churches are all within the same province of the Roman Empire.

They all had the same postal route, so it was very easy for them to have communication with one another. And then as we look at... Oh, and they had a very good Roman road system between them so that they could travel between and see each other very easily as well. They have a common language. They have a common language, exactly, yeah. Absolutely.

One of the other things that's very prevalent in these churches is a large combination of Jews and Gentiles. That was very common in that area of the world. Another thing that's good to know is John, as we've been told from sources outside of the scriptures, had likely spent more than two decades, possibly as many as three decades with these churches, especially focused on Ephesus. So John had a good relationship with all of these churches. These churches were all in an area previously mentioned in the New Testament with a history of primary and secondary impact from the ministries of Paul, Timothy, Apollos, and John, as well as Priscilla and Aquila. So these are foundational churches of the New Testament era.

They are They've all been heavily influenced by the Apostles themselves, planted by the Apostles themselves, and have been grown up through the Apostles and the people that they had taught. Very tight-knit group of churches with a lot of a lot of influence from the apostles themselves.

And then another thing that's really neat about these churches, and we'll see this over the coming weeks, is they represent a variety of spiritual conditions and external conditions. So in that sense, they're going to provide a really good tool for us to look at, to judge our own lives by. our own condition, our own spiritual conditions and external conditions. It serves as a mirror into which we can examine where we are as a church and therefore provides a perfect means for self-examination and course correction under the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's probably the biggest thing I think it's the neatest thing about these churches is they represent a very large spectrum of spiritual conditions and God uses them to this day to teach us and correct us in anything that we might have going on.

So, very important to take note of that. Alright, so now we'll dig into a couple of misconceptions and the patterns like we were talking about. The first misconception is About a century ago, William Ramsey wrote a book entitled The Letters to the Seven Churches of Revelation.

Since then, it's become really popular to call these letters, but it's probably not the best viewpoint on them. And there's a couple reasons why we wouldn't want to look at them that way. In particular, we wouldn't want to look at them as letters in the same manner as the letters that Paul had wrote to the Corinthians or the Galatians or the Ephesians or whomever. We don't want to look at them as epistles because they're different from those. And one of the primary reasons why we don't want to, and there's three reasons.

Revelations itself does not refer to these as letters. The Greek word for letter, which we get epistle from, is found throughout the New Testament, but not once in this book. So Revelation never uses that word once. So it's kind of a misconception to look at these as letters or epistles. Another thing is the messages to the seven churches do not seem to have any form of a letter of that time.

So like when Paul would do his, or Peter, or anyone for that matter, they would open up with a greeting. You know, here's, you know, I am Paul, bondservant of Christ, blah, blah, blah. So very, very structured in the way that they wrote their letters.

And the structure of these is different from that. So another reason why not to view these in the same light as the epistles. And then another distinction between a letter and these messages, and it might easily escape us, is that these letters appear to contain a heavy use of legal terminology. Some of the words can be shown to have legal application by comparative use of words within the scripture itself. Other words in the passage are known to have legal meanings by comparison with other ancient documents of the era. Here's our first pattern in the writing of these couple of chapters. It's a heavy use of legal terminology. And we'll dig into it more as the weeks go by, but a couple examples here.

Against you, which is found in Revelation 2.14 and 2.20, is a legal claim. So a legal terminology where they found a legal claim against them.

Revelation 2.23 searches is to conduct a legal investigation. And then, I know an acknowledgment of a defense claim.

So some heavy use of legal terminology. And these words would have carried a lot of impact for the believers at these churches. For John to use such heavily legal words would have had big impact on these people. They would have been like, wow, what is being claimed against me right now? What kind of investigation has been done on me? Things of that order.

So when the churches received these messages, they must have been stunned to hear such words. Those churches that did not receive a rebuke must have been immensely relieved. When the churches had begun, they came in the midst of rank paganism, gross immorality, and idolatry. Their lives were radically changed. These messages were a real wake-up call. Now while we are compelled to look at these messages as powerful, hard words, and that's what they were.

We also need to keep in perspective the other things that we've been told about our Lord Jesus Christ. So while he may be having very powerful, hard-hitting words with them, it's important to know keep them in perspective of who God is and how he deals with us.

And the first point there is he is the one that is constantly loving us. So while he may have strong rebuke and stinging words at times, they're out of love. He's our high priest in the heavenly, so if anyone's going to conduct a legal investigation against you as far as his law and his character is concerned, there's nobody better to do it. And then if we think about Hebrews 12 verses 2 and 3, big powerful words about Jesus. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So, big powerful speaking words that he has for these people, but if they're going to come from anyone, he's in a position of authority to do it. He's in a position where, I mean, he's endured the cross for us.

So, very loving, loving words, although they may be stinging and rebuking. And then another point to make about this is each of these messages also has words of comfort as well as lays out a path of correction. So, while he may be really getting after these people and saying, I've got this against you, he also has Words of love for them. And while I have this against you, here's your path to correct these wrongs.

So, big pattern in the verses right there. He's going to have something against the churches. He's going to have a loving tone for them. And he's going to have a path for them to correct their ways. The Lord was looking for a response from his warning and rebukes. He was not seeking to condemn. So the goal here is not, you're going to hell. The goal here is, you're saved, you're my people, I love you, here's something that I have against you, let's correct it. So we'll see that throughout the seven churches, that'll be a theme.

So as hard and painful as these words may seem, they spring from the Lord's heart of infinite love, as Proverbs 27.6 tells us, faithful are the words of a friend. Stinging rebuke may at times be more loving than gentle words that fail to warn us of the error of our ways. So we'll see that in these verses. So that's our first misconception, is looking at these as letters. instead of Christ's message to them. And then a first pattern there is condemnation, but not seeking to condemn. Just, I have this issue with you. I love you. Here's how we're going to correct this. So, misconception and a pattern there that we'll see in these verses. And then if we flip to the third page there, This is a really nice chart that Vern has put together that is another pattern in our text here. And if you look at our column on the left-hand side, what you'll see is how the pattern is going to run.

So there'll be an opening to the church, then there'll be a description of Christ, something that Christ knows, a condemnation, a rebuke, counsel, warning, and then he'll go over what we have, or what the church has, the church in particular, a reward for overcomers, and other promises, and then also a closing. So we'll see this pattern as he deals with the seven churches. He'll go through and hit each one of those. Now there are some cases where Smyrna doesn't receive a rebuke, and neither does Philadelphia. So there'll be some cases where it'll skip it, but this pattern is very strong throughout the writing.

So basically, in the description we'll get an idea of who Christ is, what he's doing now, what he has done, and what he is doing based on his authority already given. As far as what Christ knows, the Greek word translated knows, which in the context of the verses is translated to see or perceive, is written for each of the seven churches in a sense that I have become aware.

What is going on in the churches as far as, you know, there's nothing that's escaping Christ's attention. Like we were talking about in the first chapter, He's walking among them. He is among the seven lampstands. There's nothing that Christ is missing. We know that about His character. He's not going to miss something.

Any questions about anything so far? You guys are quiet this morning. Are you going to discuss this idea that each church represents a different time phase? We will. We're definitely going to look at that here in just a moment. I didn't skip over it, did I? Yeah. Oh, I did. I apologize. Yeah, they're on the bottom of page two. I'm glad you caught that. Another misconception, so we had our first misconception of looking at these as letters. Another misconception is that the seven churches equal seven periods of time in sequence of the church age.

Now Verne talked about this a little bit over the first few weeks, but it was first proposed by a monk of the Franciscan Order in the 1200s. And a lot of variations have come from this since then. And what Verne said is what every person, almost every group that has used this theory has put themselves in the time of tribulation. So almost every single one of them have said, oh, I know they said this before, but let's fix this timeline so that it puts us in the time of tribulation. And it's easy for us to look at it.

What do you mean by us? The 1200s? I'm sorry. What do you mean by us? It puts us in the... What I mean by us is whomever is using this theory that the seven churches or seven periods are taking themselves, so never mind us, but they're taking themselves and putting themselves in the position of we're in the time of tribulation. In other words, at the end of the sequence. At the time just prior to Christ's return. Well, the tribulation would be the end of the church age, so It sounds like you're saying that the concept is that the last church is in the tribulation. Right. Whomever is using this theory will place themselves in the tribulation. That is the common usage of it. It's fairly popular, isn't it? I was reading Tim LaHaye's commentary on the book Revelation last night.

He has a chart like this, but he has those dates at the top of each church showing what phase of the history of the church is assigned to each. Right, and what you'll see is there's a lot of people have come up with charts like that over the years. When this Peter Olivi of the Franciscan Order, when he put it together, He had dates assigned for, this from here to here was this time, and from here to here is this time, and from here to here is this time.

And so people have been doing that ever since he came up with it. Different people have done it, and the time frame on it constantly changes. Because a lot of the things are yet to occur. And so they have to make it fit. It's like, It's like, you know, this guy came up with it first, this Peter Olivi, he came up with it. And then everyone since then have found an old pair of jeans and they're like, yeah, I'm going to make this thing fit me. So they're doing what they can to make it fit their circumstances.

And there's obviously some issues with that. Do you have a question that you're done with answering? Yeah. Going back to what you just said, you said that if people accept this idea of the time correlation, they tend to also, something about the rapture or the tribulation, what was your statement? They tend to put themselves in the time period of the of the Tribulation. I didn't bring a chart with me. Apparently I should have. And I apologize that I didn't. We can get one for you guys.

But there's, I mean, they break it up, they break the church age up into each of the seven churches. So the first church is this, the first church represents this church age. And the second church in Revelation represents this age in the church. And so on and so forth through the seven churches. I should have brought a chart with me. I'm sorry I didn't.

So what you're saying then, if they, They think that since they're alive, and they believe this, that they are in the tribulation? Right. They think they're actually in the tribulation? Because the tribulation looks pretty bad, and I haven't seen things look that bad. It doesn't look like their thinking would qualify for, yeah, this is a tribulation, period, because things aren't that bad enough to qualify for tribulation. Right, but we like to think it is. So they actually believe that they're living in the tribulation?

Right. That's the common usage of this theory. I'm going to make a comment there. It should be added that most of the people that tend to take this view, they don't interpret the book literally. And so their description and their understanding of the tribulation and whether there's a rapture and where it occurs and what the Millennial Kingdoms are going to look like, their description and understanding of those is going to be But the important thing to know about this is it doesn't fit. It's not a good theory. like Ben was saying.

Is it Ben? I'm sorry. Oh, George. George, I'm sorry. Like George was saying, it's not gained from a literal interpretation. It's taking the verses and trying to make them say something that they don't. Stan? I think one of the reasons that's so easy to do is because if you look at the progression of the churches, you can see that Ephesus is basically where one would begin by losing your focus on Christ, and then Laodicea ending up as being the worst of the seven.

And so it almost looks like a progression, and as you follow through on that, you can really see, you know, well, you could really make that fit the progressive type of process. And I think you're right to see a progression in it, but it's wrong to make it something that it's not. And I don't know, but it would make sense to have a progression in your writing. When you write, you're going to start here and work your way up into something. So I think we can obviously see that in the writing, but it doesn't make sense to try and make it say something that it doesn't and fit it into some type of outline for church age. Right, and I agree with that.

Because the scripture says Christ could have said Laodicea could have been the first church, the worst church, and then worked his way backwards. For whatever reason, he went to Ephesus first, which was where you lose your first love. And then he ended up with Laodicea, which is obviously, amongst all of these, the worst, spiritually anyway. So he had a reason, whatever that was, no one will know for sure.

But I think keep this chart handy as we go through the verses over the next couple of weeks and you'll be able to really use this to help you break down the verses. It's a nice tool. I don't have a watch with me. Does anybody have the time where we're at right now? 9.32. Thank you. If we jump out of that church age thing, let's move along.

On page four there, there's another nice little chart that is dealing with this term, the overcomers. And so what you'll see there is To him who overcomes I will grant to eat the tree of life which is in paradise of God. So to each of these churches he has this overcomers theme. Now, what do you guys think this overcomers, what is it to overcome? The world. The world? The particular issues that they were faced with, specifically. But the implication there may be, what if you don't overcome? There you go. So what is the implication if you don't overcome? Lost his salvation. He said he'd remove, if they didn't, he would remove, what, the lampstand? Wouldn't he remove something? What was that, himself or the church?

That's a good question. It looks like chapter 2 verse 5. Therefore remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. Okay, but he's not talking about individuals there or Well and that's something we'll probably have to dig into a little bit more as we look at the individual churches. I don't know that I have an answer for you guys for exactly what that means to remove your lampstand this morning and I don't like to speculate.

I think it's also interesting that Vern in this chart for whatever reasons on page 3 he says Right. And the reward is listed in each one there. And it's different for each church. And I think reward for overcomers is significantly different than salvation for overcomers. Right.

And this loss of salvation is something that people have used, and this is another misconception this morning, that the The loss of salvation is something that people have used these verses to show. Well, look, if you don't overcome, He's going to remove your lampstand.

But what's also important when we study the Bible is to look at the whole Bible context. And for that context, you guys have your Bibles with you? If you turn to John chapter 10, And I think this loss of salvation is an important thing because you'll run into people in your lives that believe it to be true. And it's important to have an answer for that. But if we flip to John chapter 10, and will someone start on verse 24? And we'll read through verse 30.

But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. And no one will snatch another from my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch another from Father's hand. I am the Father and I am one.

So there's verse 28 is really the Really the telltale right there. 28 and 29 are the big ones. I just love these verses because the Jews are really getting after Jesus. Tell us plainly, they say. If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. And frankly, Jesus does. I mean, he doesn't say, I am the Christ. He doesn't use those exact words. But the implication of what he says, he's the Christ.

And I mean, verse 28, I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. There's a, in verse, excuse me, on your page there, on page 5, Verne has a It's an expanded translation from the Greek, and the way that it reads is, and basically what the expanded translation is, is he's taking out things that the regular translation does not. He's taking out verb tenses and putting them right into the translation and digging more out of the words and putting them right into the translation. So I am constantly giving them eternal life, and it is not even remotely possible for them to destroy themselves into eternity, nor for anyone to steal them by force out of my hand. Not even remotely possible for them to destroy themselves, nor for anyone to steal them by force out of my hand. So what does that say about loss of salvation? Not gonna happen.

But Kurt, then if you go back and you say, okay, not everyone in every church is going to be saved or have salvation. So you could also say that those who do overcome to whatever degree is required by Christ. Right. But the thing to think about our verses in Revelation is he's talking to believers. He's not talking to unbelievers. He's talking to people like we talked about before that had drastic change in their lives. They lived in an immense pagan world with immorality and idolatry and things of that order and has caused great change in their lives. So he's talking to believers in these verses.

An interesting thing about the word destroy. It is not even remotely possible for them to destroy themselves. That word is used a couple of different places and it carries an idea of perish. So the word destroy really has, as you look at it in different places in scripture, it really has the intent behind the use of the word destroy is clear.

It means to be in or reserved for hell. It really carries an idea of, you're not with me, you're going to hell. It's powerful that Christ said these things to the Jews. I give them eternal life, and none of them are being taken out of my hand. So you're saying this word is not only associated with damage or perishing a household, It's a word that is used throughout the New Testament that is used to show condemnation or being in hell or reserved for hell. One of the funny, interesting things here is they're asking who he is and he says, I give them eternal life. He just told them who he is. Who can give eternal life? Right.

Yeah, and as you read on in those verses, I mean, if you pick it up in 31, the Jews picked up stones again to stone him. I mean, there was no question in their mind what this guy was doing, or what he was saying. And Jesus answered them, I showed you many good works from the Father, for which of them are you stoning me? And the Jews answered him, for good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy and because you being a man make yourself out to be God." So it's so clear to the Jews what he's saying.

And if you ever have anybody who says, you know, Jesus, he was a nice guy, he was a good teacher. I mean, he's... The book by Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter, he's either a liar a lunatic, or he's the Lord. Because that's what he claims to be. He claims to be God. He claims to be the Messiah. So, he's one of three things. Either it's true, or he's lying to you, or this guy's cuckoo. I mean, he's just crazy thinking that he is. So, if anybody ever says, oh Jesus, he's just a nice guy. He never claims to to be God.

Turn to John 10 and say, well, read this and tell me what you think. So, big stuff about Jesus right there. And it's important to have that perspective as we look at the book of Revelation. He is God. And so when we talk about these stinging rebukes and these loving words and the path for correction, He's in a place of authority to give it to them. So very important. I mean, I think we all have that perspective here. That that's who Jesus is. But it's important, otherwise the book of Revelation doesn't make much sense.

Especially the verses we'll be looking at over the next couple of weeks. Does anybody have any other... I kind of whizzed through that this morning. Does anybody have any other comments or anything? One thing I thought wasn't brought out, you mentioned though, was a mixture of Jews and Christians. Which I had... I didn't realize that. But it seems to be important that it's inclusive. Right.

You didn't just go to the Jews, you didn't just go to the Gentiles. It's the new... like a new combination. Right, and the churches in the area would have been a... would have been mostly Gentile. But Ephesus in particular had a very strong Jewish proponent to it. Converts from Judaism who looked at Jesus, looked at his life and said, that's our Messiah. And then a strong combination, an even greater number of people who the message was brought to them and they said, hey, this makes sense. who came out of paganism, who came out of multiple gods, and things of that order.

Another thing that's really interesting, actually, when you go through the book of Ephesians, which they're doing downstairs, is when you read the book, you go, why is Paul being repetitive? Why is he saying the same thing twice? It sounds like the same thing twice. But really, what he'll do a lot of is he'll take the Gentile the Gentile worldview and tailor a statement to them so that he can use their culture, use their lives, and tailor a statement to them and say something about who they are. And then he'll say something, he'll do it again right after it, but he'll do it using Jewish tradition and Jewish culture. So it's actually really interesting to look at the book of Ephesians that way. It actually showed me a chart, different color lettering.

Here's a phrase that's to the Gentiles. In red, in blue, here's a phrase that's to the Jews. To us, it sounds like he's saying the same thing twice. You're going, why is he saying the same thing twice? But really, here's a tailored statement to the Gentiles, and here's a tailored statement to the Jews.

Which is pretty cool if you think about it, because one of the things that had to be done in these early churches is you have to get rid of the mindset of, I'm a Gentile and I'm a Jew. So what that'd do is, in those statements, sure he's tailoring it to each of them, but he's also causing them to understand each other better. Because the Jewish guy is going to go, why did he say that? What does this mean? The Gentile guy is going to go, oh well this is our culture and this is what happened and that's what it means to me. And the Gentile is going to ask the Jew, why did he say that to you? So it would cause them to grow together.

Which is a pretty neat thing. One of the things that The last pattern there is the closing remark. And it's interesting, the words, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the seven churches. Now, it's not used as a closing in each and every one, but it appears, those words appear in each and every message to each and every church. So, they're in every single one.

Now what's an implication of, he who has an ear, let him hear. What's the implication there? The opposite of it would be that you don't have an ear. And obviously, we're not saying that they don't have ears, but that they just don't and they're not listening. Stan?

And this is also the answer to what he was talking about. to, well this is, as Vern would say, a specific spirit because it's got the article in front of it, the spirit. Right. So there's only one spirit. So if there's one spirit, there's only one church, whether you're Jew or Gentile or whatever, it's still one spirit, the spirit. Right.

There is no chance to have Right. But that definitely was a strong, a big struggle for the early churches. The fight between Peter and Paul was about that. Peter was having a hard time accepting the Gentiles, and Paul came in and said, look, you've got to give up this separation of the Jews. This isn't right. Until Christ came, salvation was for the Jews, period. And that's why when Peter saw them... Well, it was for those who believed. You could be a... Specifically, the message came through the Jews.

Absolutely. But this, he who has an ear, let him hear. The first part of the sentence, he who has an ear, strongly implies that there might be those who don't have an ear. who are unwilling to hear what is being said. It is not that they can't physically hear, but rather that they cannot hear in their hearts and minds.

Though these messages are indeed addressed to individual churches to which they obviously apply, the phrase opens the door for us to apply what fits to any church situation. To use the modern vernacular, the shoe fits where. So it really offers an individual look at yourself, an individual look at your church. The application of these is really neat to do because as you break down what, as we look at the churches and what their condemnation is, I think a lot of times you'll be able to identify in your own life, I've dealt with that.

Or I've been somewhere or known someone who's dealt with that. And God lovingly is giving us an example of, here's an issue. I don't want you to do that because I love you. And here's the path that I want you to take back to righteousness. So you'll really be able to do that as we go through these verses. Give a lot of personal application from these verses. There's a lot, a lot of personal application from the seven churches.

I never thought about this before, but if we all have an accountability to the church that we belong to, because he's addressing the church, and in the process of addressing So, those people who are within Laodicea, they are being addressed with their church. I've never really seen that before, but generally addressing the church indirectly to people within that church. Well, I think even, I mean, some of these things tolerate false teaching into morality. How prevalent is that becoming? in a lot of churches right now. We see churches with gay clergy and the acceptance of those things.

And that's not of God. That doesn't represent who He is to the world. They really are neat to look at each one. and have that application. And sometimes you'll look at it and go, well, that's just not me. I don't have that issue. But there will be ones where you can say, I identify with that.

One thing though, we're talking about one body, one church, not separate. We're all in one body. the body of Christ, so you've got to keep that in mind as you read the seven churches. Absolutely. It is one body, but there definitely are, especially with these churches and the world that they were in, there definitely are tendencies for an individual church body to fall into. You know, the Corinthians and where they lived, they would have had a really, and that's not one of the seven churches, but they had a really strong tendency to fall into sexual immorality. I mean, we have to look at that as a whole. Absolutely. With every believer, right? I mean, it could be applied to every believer. We fall into different... Yes, absolutely. So the last is...

So why did we do an intro? Why didn't we just jump right in? Let's keep in mind the misconceptions as we deal with these verses. Keep those in mind and just push them aside. They're not for us. But also be aware of the patterns. Be aware of the patterns in the writing. You'll be able to get more out of them as we see these patterns develop. Just look for that application.

What does this mean to me? When I first learned to study the Bible, the outline was, what does it say? What does it mean? What does it mean to me? So hopefully we can do that over the next couple of weeks. What does it say? What does it mean? And that big one is, what does it mean to me? The application is huge.

Any other questions, comments? Well, let's close up in prayer and thank you guys for being here this morning. Lord, we do thank you for your word. We thank you that you've made it known to us who you are. I love knowing that you and the Father are one and there's nothing I'm going to do or nothing anyone else is going to do to take me away from you.

It's just pretty cool. I pray that as we look at these verses over the next couple of weeks, we really apply them to our lives and maybe you'll teach us something new, maybe you'll remind us of something we already know, but really the goal is to know you, to grow closer to you, and to be in close close fellowship with you. We pray again for Vern as he's in Uganda that you just use that time. Use that time to grow people to you as only you can. And we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.