Class Notes: 5/5/2021

Smyrna, the pivot for SPQR part 36

https://youtu.be/V4WF7Esxr9o

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Thomas Jefferson

Gal 5:1; It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm in freedom and do not permit evil tyrants to enslave you again.

John 8:31-32; So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; (32) and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

2John 7-8; (NET) Many deceivers have gone out into the world, people who do not acknowledge Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh. This person is the deceiver and the antichrist! (8) Watch out, so that you do not lose the things we have worked for, but receive a full reward.

2Tim 3 12-13; Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
Because evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

2Cor 4:1-18; Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart,
2 but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake.

6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;

8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;
9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
12 So death works in us, but life in you.
13 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed, therefore I spoke," we also believe, therefore we also speak,

14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.
15 For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

In our study on Smyrna, the base of the pivot power for the first gentile client nation SPQR. We are in Rev 2:10; that starts with the mandate "not to fear what you are about to suffer"

When we stopped last time we had noted that the blood of martyrs would be sown throughout the entire Roman Empire over a period of two hundred years. The historical trend of Christian suffering and testing was related to the Roman Empire being forged from a gentile empire into the first gentile client nation to God.

Many believers were going to die in the most horrible way and yet they become the basis for one of the best demonstrations in history that shows how God's people who think with God's Word of truth can resist and oppose the evil arrogant unjust administration of satan's rulership of this world.

At the rate the USA is declining into oblivion because of the rejection of all truth it appears that we may soon have our opportunity to testify in the angelic conflict in a similar way.

Next we have the connective use of the conjunction "kai" meaning "and," plus the future active indicative of the verb "echo," which generally means "to have." Translation: "and you shall have."

The gnomic future tense is for a statement of fact regarding prosperity testing anticipating the tenure of Rome as a client nation and the contribution that this suffering would make.

These ten major persecutions of Christians became the basis for millions of believers going to heaven. The Roman legions and the genius of Rome and its military activities advanced to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and Scotland bit it could not accomplish what born-again believers advancing across these borders accomplished.

The spiritual power that was sown in martyrdom rose up as a pivot of mature believers.

Next we have the accusative singular, direct object from "thipsis," translated tribulation in the NASB that means pressure, suffering, affliction, testing, "and you shall have that adversity." Then we have the numeral "deka," that means "ten."

With it we have the objective genitive plural "hemera" that literally means "days" but here it refers to a longer period of time. We will translate this: "And you shall have special persecutions ten times."

These ten special persecutions of Christians are related to the times of the Gentiles and Rome becoming the first Gentile client nation to God. In 70AD 40 years into the Church Age when the 5th cycle of discipline was finally administered to Judah was the end of Jewish client nations to God.

At that point the "times of the Gentiles" began and will continue throughout the Church Age until the exit resurrection. The dispensation of the Church is a time of historical trends and no prophecy, and during the Church Age only Gentile nations can be client nations to God.

It was not the Roman republic that became a client nation to God. Before Rome could ever be a client nation it had to be an empire. It had to be an empire where the rulers of the empire were often incompetent, but the genius of Julius Caesar had set up a system of administration that would function regardless of whether the emperor was good or bad, competent or incompetent.

Our founders did a similar thing when they wrote the Constitution of client nation USA.

Ten times rulers of Rome tried to wipe out Christianity in the empire not realizing that doing so would also destroy Rome, because as long as there was a pivot of mature believers in SPQR Rome would continue to exist as God's client nation. The same is true for the client nation USA.

In the midst of these attempts to wipe out Christianity, Christianity not only grew in the Roman Empire but it expanded beyond the Roman Empire so Rome survived in spite of itself.

It survived because believers in these seven churches made decisions to reside and function inside of God's spiritual power system, and by making those decisions SPQR continued as an empire until 476 AD, by which time there were too many carnal cosmic believers in the empire and missionary activity ceased to function.

It was not until Constantine the Great and the edict of Milan, in 313 AD, that the Church officially ceased to be persecuted by Roman rulers. At that point a new more insidious danger arose: the union of Church and State.

Christianity failed the prosperity test because they were happy to become a state religion and that was evil. The Church can never function when it is sponsored by the state. The Church cannot be the state; the Church must operate under the state, under government, but never be the government.

So the combination of Church and State was another test for the Church and that failure led to the Dark Ages.

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