August 11, 2023

After last week’s study about the church that lost its first love (Ephesus), Pastor Kevin moves on with the letter to the Church at Smyrna (the persecuted church). Polycarp was a disciple of John the apostle. He was born in Smyrna and was the leader of the church at Smyrna when he was arrested and burned at the stake about 60 years after the letter of Revelation was delivered to his city, warning of coming persecution. He was given the opportunity to save his temporary life if he were only to denounce Jesus and worship Caesar as god. His reply, "Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never once wronged me; how then shall I blaspheme my King, Who hath saved me?" Kevin gives examples of persecution storm clouds forming against Christians in America, and exhorts the church to be courageous as the hardships are certainly going to be ramping up based on the plans of the globalists to bring about a collapse of the world economy. Kevin quotes from the World Economic Forum web site about the goals of the Jan 2021, “Global Reset” meeting https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/about. Next week Kevin plans to finish expounding on the persecuted church of Smyrna and cover the next two churches as well.

Associated notes and links are at calvarypo.org under Sermon Archives, Revelation, https://calvarypo.org/sermons/but-you-are-rich-revelation-28-9/.

Maranatha!