Growing Spiritually with Melissa Scott

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that only kings, only high people, high standing people, officials wore purple. You were a person of great authority and most likely a king or high-ranking official in the church if you wore purple. This purple was extracted from the plant called the madder or a shellfish called the murex. One little drop of that purple could dye and color a whole bunch. And I want you to think of that as we look through this letter because it’s going to lead us back to a parable. And some of you are already on the page. It’s going to lead us back to a parable of something. One little drop will contaminate everything.

Purple is what Thyatira’s famous for. This letter starts the same way all the other ones do. ‘To the church at Thyatira from…’ and I just want to read through it. Before we do anything else let’s just read through the letter so everybody’s at the same starting point.

“Unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; these things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass. I know thy works, charity, service, faith, thy patience and works; and the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.”

Remember this is Jesus talking. Some people that want to paint Jesus as the cushiony, fluffy, you know ‘I love you so much.’ He does but there’s another side to Him and that’s His all-power and wrath that He’s going to pour out on some of these people shortly. What does he say? I know this is terrible. Some people can’t believe this is Jesus talking.

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“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue the faith, continue in the faith, and that we must go through much tribulation to enter the kingdom of God.” Now, I don’t understand what’s complicated about that. That’s what the Bible says. It’s a part and parcel of what I said weeks before of pressing into the kingdom. That’s how you’re going to be pressed in and the more you push through your tribulation, get me away from this, get the troubles away from, get my circumstances away. Okay smart aleck, whack, more for you. There’s a little bit more because you grumbled in your circumstances instead of saying thank God for the fire, thank God for the situation that will bring out the best in me, produce my beginning of my Christ-likeness that I’m hoping daily to be conformed a little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit more each time. Whew! I made it through that one, there’s no more tribulation. Right? Wrong.

He says, I’m going to come back to this maybe, He says and the ptocheian, the poverty, the poverty and this is not translated, it’s a direct, but it’s not translated in the original ‘poverty.’ Let me talk about that.

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that this message is so totally backwards from everything else you’ll hear out in the world because it’s straight out of the Bible. I’m not adding or taking away to it. That’ll hit you in about 30 seconds, maybe. The poverty, “I know your tribulation and the poverty.” Not just any poverty. There’s another word in the Greek called penia. Looks like penia, that’s someone who just squeaks out a living, they just barely get by. This word here ptocheian, utter destitution, nothingness; you have absolutely nothing. How could the church of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ Himself is speaking, say “I know your tribulation and your poverty,” how could this be His church?

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Okay. Let me, let me kind of give some background because the background today is very important. Smyrna, unlike Ephesus, if you want to make a comparison of the two places picture Ephesus being like New York City, all right. Smyrna would be the equivalent of Washington, D.C. and I say that because it sat the council, the largest Roman body to govern although it wasn’t under direct Roman rule.

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that they were free from taxes; they still were under their empire. Now there’s a long history that goes back, I don’t want to bore you with it except to say that if you talk to and read all the documentation regarding Izmir, Izmirs, Smyrna you’ll find people say there was always, it always existed. It’s been there forever and ever. We have historical records of 1,000 B.C., 1,000 years before Christ. It was settled by the Ionians, it became one of the 12 in the Ionian league and of course everybody claims to have founded it but the three people that have a claim to fame of saying that they founded it, whatever that means, that three people could found the same place. The Pelops, Theseus and of course no invasion would be complete without Alexander the Great.

So you have this triplet of things happening. Single handedly Alexander the Great, and I have to say I’ve been doing an awful lot of reading about Alexander the Great, not only can you find traces of things that happened in modern history go backwards and I say that Alexander’s pursuit to one, under one nation. Here we have our bills say under, under one nation, under one God, whatever the bill says I don’t know what it says anymore, they’re about to change it I think but you never know in this country anymore. But I think Alexander’s vision was one nation under Alexander that was his vision.

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We’ve already covered “repentance:” ‘change of mind.’ “But this thou hast, thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He which hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches,” plural; “to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Okay? Here’s the starting point. We can take this text and I can say to you that every single letter if you know, you’ve read the book every single letter is going to have more or less the same “to,” “from;” it’s going to have the same feel to it and there are certain repeatables that occur. We’re going to look at every letter, not today; we’re going to look at every letter by, I’m like a snail’s pace now. But the one thing that I think is very important this is why I set the stage with looking at Ephesus because when it says “If you don’t change your ways, if you don’t change your mind, I’m going to take your candlestick from you, I’m going to take your Church away from you.”

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that now, most people want to say “Well, don’t try and mesh this with what happened” but, inevitably, you look at the mid 250′s in the mid 2 , 2 , between 250 and 260 the Goths came in, destroyed the place. There was nothing left. When the Goths came in they just ransacked everything. And then there’s a wave of things that happens afterwards. The Goths come in, and then a little bit later you’ve got Constantine that comes in, in the mid 300′s, comes in, early 300′s; he tries to regain the ‘golden age’ of things over there, he builds a bathhouse. Arcadius comes in and he builds this beautiful, or tries to rebuild a beautiful street which is called Arcadian Way, that never regained its grandeur. It’s, and it’s, if you look at the fall of the Roman emperor, Empire, that’s all they, they spent the last period doing is trying to regain what was. And it’s ironic because that’s the message of the Church at Ephesus, trying to go back to what was.

You have, in 431, the great Church council is held there after that the history just gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Sixth, by the 6th century Emperor Justinian builds a Basilica there. Big deal! By 1090 the Celtics come in; they conquer the place. By the 14th century, nothing there! Pilfered, robbed, all the marble, all the gold, all, anything that was there, just pilfered for some other town, some other whatever. And I can just imagine, for 300 years plus before they began digging silt, frogs, and lizards. You know, you have this Demetrius in the Temple saying “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.” I’m sure that the frogs probably croaked that tune! Just think about that! At least you know you serve a living King. You don’t have to worry about like I said Alexander the Great, when he died what happened to the kingdom? Gone! So, we’re going to look at, first I want to look at one word which seems to plague a lot of people because the book has so much symbolism in it.

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Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that this may or may not have anything to do, although from my vantage point it does. If you hear nothing else I say today, want to read you a little something very, very short. Sometimes the briefest things, the most straight to the point, can be the most profound from The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C.S. Lewis. Those of you who know I like to just mull through. Something very profound.

“It’s nice to still be under the care of Saint Mary Magdalene. The allegorical sense of her great action dawned on me the other day. The precious alabaster box which one must break over the Holy One’s is, the Holy One’s feet is one’s heart, easier said than done, and the contents will become perfume only when it’s broken. While they are safe inside, they’re more like sewage.” It’s very brief. I may need to reread that later I’m not quite sure you all heard what I said.

But there’s this tendency to, I guess, live under the realm that as long as you believe don’t get me wrong. I love the song Only Believe: “Only believe; all things are possible,” but we live in this realm where ‘Just believe,’ seldom do people actually venture into why we practice certain things. Why do people do what they do? And you’ll find that as we go you’re starting to see that I like all kinds of things you’re getting to know me a little bit more one of them is ecclesiology, the history of the Church, or Church history, because if you go back in time you will see how things became that weren’t there at the beginning.

Now, I’m going to take you to Acts 19 to start, it’s not where we’re going to stay but turn in your Bibles to Acts 19. The precursor to this is I really want you as we read through this Acts 19, I want you to take a different look. In fact, if I could ask you something it would be “Start reading your Bible with new eyes, because you can become so familiar with something it no longer has the impact that it first had the first time you read it.” We have been and we will be today in Revelation, but I wish to show something.

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Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that the feet will touch, judgment will come, and judgment. A lot of people say “Well, what type of a thought process is that?  Judgment starts at the House of God. We’ll see as we go through the Seven Churches a warning and judgment, a warning and judgment.

A warning and a reward, but will they listen? Just like the prophets, will they listen? Just like here, will they listen? “His voice as the sound of many waters.” And I like, in Daniel it says “the voice of a multitude.” “The voice of many waters.” We need water to live; Jesus is our life. So I like the way that poetry flows. “And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth a sharp two edged sword.” The same words bring life to some and death to others. “His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.” Literally, the Greek says “His face was as the sun shining in its own power, the sun being the center of the universe: a brilliant depiction of Christ, the center of our universe.

“And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I’m the first and the last.” Now remember, we have this picture of Him having the right hand with the stars in it, the hand of power and authority, having the seven stars. And now He has His hand on. John. Verse 18: “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have, and have the keys of hell and of death.” This is pivotal. I wrote this in Greek   it’s all Greek to me   ”and the living .” I put this dot here because it represents a comma. “And, and the living and I became.” I want to circle this for a minute because your translation is a little bit weird in your Bible.

When it reads, “I’m he that liveth and was dead, it’s a little subtle difference to say “And I became dead.” You remember in John 1:14 when it says, “The Word became flesh?” It’s the same thing. The Word became flesh; the Word that became flesh became dead. None of those were His nature. He put on another nature to kin Himself to us. He put on another nature when He paid the price for us.

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“And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth” never, never seen before; it will “destroy… everything… where the breath of life is…under heaven”- everything is going to be gone, “But with thee I will establish my covenant” – another first: first time for grace, first time for righteous or sedeqa, first time for covenant ever spoken of in the Bible. And He goes on to tell him what he is going to bring into the ark. Of course we know they put the animals in. We will discuss this because the animals going into the ark is a completely different story. There is much detail, people just glaze over it and say well, okay these animals and thus and so.

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that there is reason why “two” and “seven.” There is reason why God knew He was going to see Noah through. They come out on the other side and there is a reason, not just procreation of the animals. And believe you me while the animals were in that ship, there was a lot of stuff going on. A lot of people think well they are put in their little stalls and everybody was happy. How much weight carried it, some of you already have a perverse mind I can tell. Keep your mind on the Lord. Animals: you got to feed them and they produce other stuff. So with no capacity to open the door and get the stuff out of there, it must have been terrible. It must have stunk in there. It must have just been absolutely terrible.

Now lest you think I have gone too Bible on you, and I want to read this before I run out of time. Some of these books are super great. This is one that I like well because even though the person who wrote this, B. J. Corbin, it is a compilation of people, The Explorers of Ararat. What I like about this is he starts out by saying not everybody in essence believes in the Bible or not everybody is basing their facts on thus and so. So basically just bear with me until you hear what I have to say. And I like that because he is not putting his belief down my throat first.

He is going to present some evidence. Now this book is, I will probably bring this to Festival tonight and we’ll go through it but he amassed some information about the whereabouts. I just watched a documentary where people snuck into a country to try and get a glimpse and photos, they were kicked out – it is very secretive. Now either somebody is hiding something or there is a good conspiracy, but in any event this has been going on for a long time.

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Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that this word ‘with speed’ and this word ‘together’ cause a problem. Why? Because when people read it they say, “it must shortly come to pass”, right now and “the time is at hand”, that means tomorrow or right now. Romans 16:20 if you feel like mulling around, mull, and if you don’t I’ll read it to you. Romans 16:20. Romans 16:20, “and the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly,” but that hasn’t happened yet. Paul’s writing to encourage in this Roman letter at the end all these greetings and benedictions and salutations.

He’s saying this as an encouragement, but it hasn’t yet happened. That word that he’s using for, “under your feet shortly,” – en tachei. I want to illustrate to you it’s not something that you can say, “Well, yeah, but you know it’s in the book of Revelation and nothing’s happened there yet so” No, it’s through the Bible. It’s being used elsewhere. What about this word for, “the time is at hand?” Go to James 5:8. “Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” So you can see what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to take away the ridicule that’s been put on this Book to show you these very same words, en tachei and eggus, “the time is at hand” and ‘shortly’ are elsewhere.

Now when James was writing I’m sure he really meant to encourage the people in whatever dimension that he intended, likewise Paul. Now, 2nd Peter 3 has the logical time frame; God’s time’s not our time so, “one day is as a thousand years with the Lord, a thousand years is as one day.” So, what is time to God? I don’t know, but all I’m telling you is it’s not a unique usage in Revelation. So when people talk to you about this and they say, “Well, it says with speed,” quickly, must happen quickly, and “man it hasn’t happened yet,” you need to tell them, “Well, yeah, but I know the grammar behind this or I’ve seen the structure of what this is, or I know the usages elsewhere, and I know that there are a lot of other things that haven’t happened yet because they’re all small little prophetic voices that all are saying the same thing.” Remember, Dr. Scott used to say, “major in God’s repeatables?” You have it here so you don’t have to think about, “well I’m not sure.” I wanted to cover that before we proceeded.

Now, let me go to the rest of this. Sometimes I get very animated and forget where I am. All right. He (signified) and I put this in brackets because if I could make it less crazy I would say something for you to look at he – this is a ‘Scott-ism’ – He, ‘sign-i-fied’ it. He, with signs – break down that word ‘signified’ ‘sign-i-fied’ and you’ll see the signs and the symbols used in the Book and everything that’s in the Book. If we have time, we’re going to look at everybody knows, everybody’s been taught about the value of numbers in God’s Book, but in the book of Revelation it’s paramount that you know the repeated numbers have a meaning and it’s not enough to say ‘complete’ or ‘perfect.’ There are other underlying tones we’re going to look at if we get there. So, “with speed and He signified it having sent it by” or through “the” definite article “the angel,” specific.

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They’re both good and they both confirm each other, so quit trying to say that this writer or this fragment contradicts. They are two records woven together. And as we have said many times although the thought process is Moses penned most, the common thought is Moses penned these passages we’re looking at I think it’s an accumulation of writers put together, woven in one tapestry and it confirms itself. So let’s not pick it apart. Let’s put it down to what it is. This is why they became the high criticism scholars because everything was open to be picked apart. I don’t want to do that.

Noah the problem with Noah every child that goes to Sunday School and even children who didn’t go to Sunday School know the story of Noah, and it is, it is depicted like a cartoon: Noah built an ark; the animals went in two by two; it rained forty days and forty nights; they came out and everybody was happy. Now you can all go home. But it’s a little bit more than unfair to say this, the pursuit of brilliant minds, the quest to find the ark.

And you would be surprised, once you start looking at books and documentaries of people who have really put their whole life into the quest to find the ark. I remember I had a conversation with Dr. Scott once and he asked me, now I’m talking about Noah’s Ark, but he asked me, he said, “Where do you think the ‘Ark of the Covenant is’? Now I think I have told you this before I said to him, “I think it is in Ethiopia.” Just oddball, this is some ten years ago.

How would I even think or know? Because I had seen something on the subject that was fascinating. These people claim to have the ark hidden away somewhere. I don’t know it is not for me to say but the fullest proof leads in that direction. It just plumb disappeared. Now unless somebody did something else to it, good chance that these people have it. The ark is one of those things that everybody wants to claim they have either seen or they know they have seen it, but the one common denominator is the quest for it. Not everybody’s quest is the same. Some pursue the ark because if they can just find the ark, that will give validity to the Bible and therefore everything in the Bible will be true. That’s wrong.

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that the starting point for us is we start by Faith, not by fact, not by what we see. That is what Christianity is based on, the miracle of the resurrection which I call fact, but we weren’t eyewitnesses, and there are some people even today that say no, just like Thomas, “unless He appears and I can see the nail holes, I won’t believe it.” There are things we must take on Faith, not face value Faith value.

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In fact, Paul will deal so eloquently with these perfectionist teachers when he gets down to this last passage, he deals with the fact anybody coming to sell you another gospel other than Christ crucified and Christ rose from the dead, anything else is going to be laddered in law and works and the only thing that manages to be worked out in all that is human pride to show your achievements and your accomplishments. And this is why Paul goes on to say, “I glory, I boast in what God has done.”

So voluntarily He gave of Himself to meet our condition that He might deliver us. You know there are different words that will be used. Some places it will say, “To save us,” some, “to spare us.” This Greek word is to take us out of the way of evil and danger and it says, “From this present evil world,” literally “from this present evil age.”  ”According to the will of God and our Father,” so, so simplistic but this our sins, meeting our condition to deliver us being the purpose in this particular verse, all right.

The result of this deliverance-let me use another color. The result of this deliverance brings immediate grace and peace. See, when we do something and try to be homiletic about it, sometimes we have to follow the order. But in this way, looking at it, I see the result from being delivered by His voluntary act for our sins, which He gave His life to deliver us from this present evil age. The result of this deliverance is immediately grace and peace. And we’ve defined both of those things as simple as grace, unmerited favor and peace, cessation of againstness or surrender.

Now what I marvel at, this is the thing that I marvel at. If this was the only part of scripture that I had and didn’t have any part of the Bible, I could know that my salvation didn’t come from anything I did. In every line, line upon line, I know everything that happened in my life, my salvation, and my righteousness came from Him. My justification came from Him.

My sanctification-in fact all of these will exemplify all of those theological words brilliantly done by the Apostle Paul. I don’t even think-it was the hand or the breath of God flowing through him to depict these. So this first one tells me the initial result, grace and peace; and the permanent result, which is here, “to whom be glory for ever and ever.” A simple, simple concept; but one is in the immediate and one is in the permanent. This is in the now, grace and peace in the now; and for ever and ever that glory might be given to God our Father in heaven for that act, that voluntary act.

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