All right, let's open up. We'll be in two main places tonight. Matthew 13 and Revelation 2. So mark those spots in your Bible. But we're going to turn to a few other places kind of as an introduction here. We're dealing with the seven parables that we find in the mysteries of the kingdom given in Matthew 13 by Christ. And in these parables, we understand from comparing Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that the parables are given not just to relate to the kingdom of heaven, but also to the kingdom of God. Now having said that, I know there's a lot that goes behind those two ideas and concepts, but if you can think about it like this, you think about the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is a physical kingdom. And so Jesus Christ is the king of both kingdoms. So as he presents the gospel of the kingdom, he presents both aspects of that, physical and spiritual. Now, we don't preach a physical kingdom as far as saying, hey, you need to make sure you move to the state of Florida because we're gonna serve Jesus, and anyone who hates Jesus is gonna have to leave. And we're gonna set up our capital in Monticello. And this is gonna be the place. That's not how we operate, although there have been religions and denominations that have operated that way. Catholics and Protestants certainly have done that. They fought, and other religions have operated that way when you think of Muslims and Islam and all that kind of stuff. But the scripture is a lot different when you see how the Jews reject the physical kingdom, so God brings the spiritual kingdom to the Gentiles. The only time the physical kingdom shows up is when the king is on the earth, in the flesh, physically. But Jesus is not in the flesh physically now. He is here among us spiritually. Where two or three are gathered, there is he in the midst of us. So that's why we preach the kingdom of God, the gospel of the kingdom of God, and it's also called the gospel of the grace of God. And so you need to understand that aspect because when we look at the parables, tonight we're gonna talk about the parallels of the parables. And we're going to look at each of the seven parables, how they relate in the kingdom of God, specifically the church age in which we are. But by way of preface, I want you to see how this kingdom of God is present. Turn over to Romans. We're going to flip through just a few of Paul's epistles and see this present reality of the kingdom of God being preached. Look in Romans 14. Now, if you recall, when John the Baptist began to preach before Christ did, he said, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and that's what he preached. But when Christ shows up, he preaches both the kingdom of heaven is at hand and the kingdom of God is at hand. John the Baptist never preached that. It's Jesus Christ that preached both kingdoms. John only preached that physical kingdom. So John gets locked up in jail and that's kind of a preface, a telltale sign of what was to come. The Jews were like, we're not gonna listen to John. And Jesus is saying, hey, if you're not gonna listen to John, you sure aren't gonna listen to me. And they didn't. And by Matthew chapter 12, they, as a nation, committed the sin of the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. They said Jesus Christ was casting out devils through the devil. That he had a spirit of the devil. And Jesus says, you're gone. This thing's done. And you begin to see a shift with how the nation responded to Christ, and eventually, of course, he goes to the cross. What did I tell you? Romans 14. Let's look at this kingdom of God. I want you to see in Paul's epistles, in application for us today, the kingdom of God is still here and we are preaching this kingdom, this spiritual kingdom. Romans chapter number 14. If you'll come down a few verses in here, notice in verse number seven, none of us live to himself, no man dieth to himself. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's, okay? I keep reading, he's talking about how some people judge one another. He says, so then every one of us should give account of himself to God, verse 12. Verse 13, let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. Don't trip somebody up. Verse 14, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother begreed with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably, destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. So he's dealing in the physical realm. He's talking about these physical things. Some people go over there and they say, hey, these idols are nothing, even though they're selling meat that's offered under idols. I'm going to I want to be a good piece of steak. And now that even though I'm a Jew, I'm saved, I can eat pork. I'm going to get me a slab of bacon. And he's like, hey, when you do that and you cause your brother to be weak and offended because he sees you standing in line at the pagan meat market, he thinks, oh no, this guy's worshiping false gods now. He goes, you're destroying your brother. And I remember hearing this years ago, so I like to use it. Old preacher used to use this. He was a football guy. He loved college football. And he says, you know what, there's a place. Or he said, what if there was a place? They used to sit back before they had internet, you know, you waited for the schedules to come out. And there will be certain places that would put out the college football schedule. He says, you know what, there's this ABC liquor store down here that puts out the schedule before anybody else. What would you think if you saw me coming out of that liquor store? Yeah, that would hurt a young Christian. You say, well, he just goes in there to get a schedule, so it's no big deal. I'm going to go down here, and I'm going to sit at the bar. I'm going to go to Applebee's or Longhorn's or whatever, and I'm going to sit at the bar and eat my steak. Yeah, you can do that. You're not going to go to hell, but if somebody sees you sitting at the bar, what are they going to think? So he's dealing with the physical realm, that's the context, and he says, hey, one day you're gonna stand in front of the Lord, but notice, as we keep reading, that's kind of the context. Verse 16, let not then your good be evil spoken of. So just because you can do it doesn't mean you're supposed to. Verse 17, for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. It's a spiritual kingdom. But the idea I'm trying to get across to you is it's presently there as Paul's speaking to these Romans. Keep turning, go to Colossians. So the kingdom of God is certainly pertinent in the church age. And so don't buy into the idea as we go through these parables that there's no application for us in the church age because these parables are given by Christ in the earthly ministry before the cross. Nothing could be further from the truth. I mean good night if you take that line of reasoning then John 3 is not for you either. John 3 he told Nicodemus you had to be born again and he gave the great greatest verse one of the greatest verses as far as salvation is concerned John 3 16 well that was before the cross so that refers to the conversion of Israel. Cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo. You can't do that. But people do it. The kingdom of God is being preached by Jesus Christ and the kingdom of heaven, so you're gonna find that overlap that has application in the church age. Colossians 1, look at this, look at verse 13. Present tense, talking to Christians, who have delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. So if you're saved, you are in that kingdom now. Now you pull out your driver's license, it'll have Florida on it. You have an earthly citizenship, but you have a spiritual citizenship in heaven. Keep turning to the right, look in Colossians 4. Colossians 4. The kingdom of God is applicable for us. So when you see this pop up in the Gospels, take notice. Look in Colossians 4, verse... 11 he's giving his last words talking about some of the different people greeting great so-and-so notice he says in Jesus which is called justice who are of the circumcision those two guys these only are my fellow workers unto the kingdom of God which have been a comfort unto me and so they were working with him as he preached look in first Thessalonians chapter 2 first Thessalonians chapter 2 each chapter in 1 Thessalonians will end with a reference to the Lord's return. And as you draw closer to the end, you'll begin to see that in each chapter. But notice in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, he goes back some of the history of how he visited and ministered to them. Verse number 11, as you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his children that you would walk worthy of God who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. That's a present calling. And that is the kingdom. All right, so let's go to Matthew 13 and Revelation 2 and let's look at these parables. These are the parallels. What we're going to do is we're going to look at each of these parables briefly in comparison, there are seven of them, with the seven churches that are given in the book of Revelation. And I don't know that all of these match up 100%. I saw an article actually which got my mind kind of thinking about this idea from actually brother Donovan in the Bible Believers Bulletin last year sometime. And then I began to look at some old books and I found Gabilon. He was an old dispensational author. He actually influenced C.I. Scofield to do the Scofield Reference Bible. Some of you have a Scofield Bible. He influenced Schofield to do that. And Gabaline in 1910, I found his commentary on Matthew and he had the same thing laid out. So it must have been a pretty common thing to do, which is pretty neat when you think about it. You think about numbers and you know all these sevens pop up everywhere and you say, man, Jesus gives seven parables. So what other sevens are laid out? Well, there are seven churches laid out in the book of Revelation. And so when you think about the church age, which is in the kingdom of God, and these parables have an overlap to the kingdom of God, it's possible that each of these parables would match one of those successive church periods. All right, so Revelation 2, real quick, let me give you this. In Revelation chapter 2, we know that these seven churches, we have a primary association. Some of you, you've already learned all this. I taught it in Revelation class. And I've done a whole series on the seven churches, so a lot of this is review. In other words, when John wrote the thing, he sent it out to seven churches that were there. That's in history. That's a primary association. But then we know there's a prophetic association. He said, I'm writing this book Revelation of Jesus Christ, of the things which must shortly come to pass. So that's a prophetic book that is at the end times. John writes it in 95 AD, but that thing is written there, but it's prophecy. And it really has the application even after the rapture of the church. So we know that these are tribulation churches that have to overcome and endure to the end. That's the prophetic application. Then we have the personal application. You can read each of these little letters to the seven churches, and you can say, oh, that's me. Man, I got a name that I'm Lib, but I'm really dead. I'm a dead, dehydrated Baptist, as Harold Sightler used to say. You dead, dehydrated Baptist, you need to get right with God. And you read these things and he says, he that hath an ear, let him hear. So if you got an ear, it's the same thing Christ says actually in Matthew 13. But if you got an ear, you gotta listen. So there's a personal application. And then we have what's called the parallel application. That's where we're gonna look at it tonight. And that means each of these seven churches, they depict and portray a period of church history, starting from the early church after the resurrection of Christ, going through the successive periods all the way to the last church age which is right before the rapture of the church of the church of the latest scenes which is apostasy which I believe we're in now if you back up just a little bit you'll get into the Philadelphia age and that would have been the turn of the century and there have been more there was more evangelism more revivals more missionary endeavors you know in that last period capping off in the early 1900s and petering out in the end of the fundamentalist movement in 1920, that was pretty much it. And we've just been on a downwards spiral ever since. So that's how we're gonna look at it in comparison to these parables. Everybody, does that make sense to everybody? Glad, hope it does. Okay, if it don't, sorry. Too bad, so sad. So let's look at the first one. Matthew 13, we have the parable of the sower. Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. and we'll compare it to Revelation chapter 2. So Matthew 13, you'll notice the parable, verse number 3. He spake many things unto them in parable, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. When he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth. When the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath the ears to hear, let him hear." All right, come down to the explanation of the parable that Christ gives. Look in verse 18, "'Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, Then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. So that tells us that the word is the seed, right? Does that make sense? There's another passage that actually tells us that the sower soweth the word. That references in Luke 8, verse 11. The seed is the word of God, he says, in Luke's gospel. And so he sows the word and then it falls on the wayside, the devil comes and gets it. Verse number 20, but he that receives seed in stony places, the same as he that heareth the word and anon, with joy receiveth it. If you compare it to Mark he says at once, so anon means immediately or at once. Verse number 21, yet hath he not rooted himself, but doreth for a while, for in tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. Verse 22, he also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receives seed in the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. All right, so let's go to Revelation chapter number two. Revelation chapter number two, and look at the first church, which is the church of Ephesus. And this is the church that, with the time period, would go approximately to about 200 A.D. It would be the early church, the apostolic age. Verse number 1, Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy works, thy labor, thy patience, how thou canst not bear them which are evil. Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars. And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, and that overcometh will I give to either the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. And so you'll notice that we have the first church, this will be the apostolic church, and we have in the first couple of verses he mentions their labor and patience and they tried some, they couldn't bear those that were evil. Some people were saying they were apostles and they weren't, verse number two. So that shows us it's the apostolic age. And those apostolic signs were dying out with the apostles. Paul the Apostle says at the end of his ministry, he says, He told Timothy, use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, which was what they thought was a medicinal remedy back in the day and because evidently there was The apostolic sign gifts of healing was disappearing. So some people were claiming to be apostles and the early church says, you're a fake. You're not a real apostle. And so you see that. So you also see that you have some good seed that does remain, but there's obviously some bad seed. There's some people that left their first love. So when you think about the parable of the sower, if you try to make a connection, you've got What is it? Three quarters of it that really doesn't do anything. It's only a quarter of it that brings forth some fruit. But the fruit it brings forth is in those three stages. Called, chosen, fateful. Peter, James, John. There's all kind of threes that you see that thing play out as. And it's 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold. And so that'd be the early church and that's a possible match for that apostolic age. Now let's go to the second parable and check it out. Go to Matthew 13, Matthew chapter 13. And I don't have all of these details worked out. You can spend a lot more study time on it and see if you can get more comparisons. But this would just be an overview of the parables and a comparison. Now, the second church will be the church of Smyrna. And notice the parable of the tares among the wheat. Look down in Matthew 13, verse number 24. Another parable, put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went in his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. I always think about those fields. A lot of times you'll see a field that nobody's cut in a long time, and you'll see this stuff, and it kind of looks like wheat, but it's just a weed. I don't know what it is. You farmers know. I always think of it being something like that. I know this. When you plant a garden, and you're all excited, and you put it in the ground, and Brother Hightower tells you how many days before it's supposed to come up, so you're out there looking, you counting it off, you know. and you're all excited. There will be little stuff that will pop up and it will look kind of like the, like the real deal. It's not going to be a copycat. And you have to watch it and you have to wait. And that's kind of a similar thing here. And let's look at the interpretation Jesus gives. He doesn't give interpretation for all of them but He does these couple ones. Look down in verse 24. I mean is that where we were? Where were we at? We were in 24, 36, 36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares of the children are the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Son in the kingdom of their Father, who hath ears to hear, let him hear." All right, so we have the parable of the tares among the wheat, and let's look at the Church of Smyrna in Revelation 2.8. This would be the time period going approximately 200 to 325 AD. Revelation 2.8, "'Unto the angel of the church of Smyrna write, these things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive. I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich. And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried. And you shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou fateful unto death, And I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. So this time period again would be around 200 to 325. And you'll notice this evil seed. The parable of the tares shows that The tares and the wheat are both growing together and he says you're going to have to wait until the end because if you go out and try to get it out now you're going to mess up the tares before the fruit comes up. So there's some evil seed that's sown among the good seed. So what we will find in church history as we go through and you remember back way back I don't know, about a year and a half ago when I taught Revelation, we stayed on church history for a little while in Revelation 1, 2, and 3, and we talked about these different heresies as they began to pop up in the early church, and how what began to take place was these tears that were coming up among the wheat. So you had some things that were true, like you take Christianity in general, and when I say that I mean Catholicism and Protestantism. And you take Greek Orthodox, you take Lutheran, you take Roman Catholic, and you begin to look at some of their fundamental beliefs, and they're 100% accurate. They testify that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that he died for sinners, that he was buried, that he rose again from the dead. They testify that he is going to return again one day. Okay, those things are true. But boy, in the middle of all that wheat, there's a whole lot of tears coming up. And you begin to see that stuff crop up in church history. And you'll notice just for if you want to write down these two names, this would be a fellow named Cyprian of Carthage in 250 A.D. approximately. He made the statement that the church was built on Peter, the apostle. You ever heard that before? And he said Peter was actually in Rome, which the Bible does not teach. Roman Catholics do teach that. And he actually said the Lord's Supper was a sacrifice, not a memorial. That's the first time you see that pop up. So in other words, every time you come and you have the mass, the sacrifice of Christ is taking place over and over and over. And that's how you have eternal life is you put Jesus's body in you and you drink his blood. Then there's another fellow named Origin of Alexandria around 225 AD. He did a lot of corruption with the Bible manuscripts. And he taught salvation through water baptism. But he also taught the fundamentals of the faith. The virgin birth, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But you have to be baptized to go to heaven. So there's the evil seed cropping up among the wheat there. All right, let's go back to Matthew 13, look at our next one. Our next parable is the parable of the mustard seed. Matthew chapter 13. seed in verse number 31. Now let's look over at the Church of Pergamos in Revelation 2, Pergamos. That word pergamos can be translated to mean, as far as a meaning, it means to be married or to be twice married or much marriage. Revelation 2.12, And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with the two edges, I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is. And thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days when Antipas was my fateful martyr, who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna. and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." So here we have the Church of Much Marriage, and this would match 325 to about 500 AD. The reason I say that is because you have a fellow named Constantine show up, one of the Roman Emperor's there and he says you know what all these this paganism around here is bad You know people do this stuff on December 25th, and they worship these false gods and stuff like that So let's just change all of these this pagan stuff this this you know worshiping the dead and not and let's turn it into a Worshiping the Saints holiday all you know and things like that so you begin to see a lot of these holly holy days from holidays And you begin to see paganism turned into Christianity. The idea of lighting candles for somebody that's dead. All these kind of things, they come from paganism. And Constantine, what he did is he slacked off all of the persecutions on their true Christians and said, hey, if you can't beat them, let's join them. Let's just change all of these pagan rituals and rules into Christianity. So you have the world and the church marrying up. And you begin to have that with Constantine, also a fellow named Augustine. You ever heard of, of course, a place right over here, the oldest city in the country, St. Augustine, named after the guy. And he wrote a book called The City of God. And really, he's what we would call the first Catholic and the first Calvinist. You've heard of Calvinism before. Calvin's in the 1500s, but Augustine's in the 300s. And he actually teaches Calvinism. And he didn't even know John Calvin. In other words, the ideas that Calvin really pushed out there were actually developed by Augustine way back in the 300s. And he had a fellow named Jerome, and you have Jerome's Latin Vulgate, which was a corrupt Latin Bible. And that's down this time period as well. Notice down, if you will, you have Balaam mentioned, which goes back to the Old Testament. And we get into that whole mystery religion of Babylon, but then notice also verse 15, the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. That means to conquer the laity. You see that word laity? You've heard of laity? That means the regular church people. Nico means to conquer. So there were some people that were saying, you know what? We're better and we're higher of authority than the lay people. I mean, you don't need to read the Bible on your own. You come to me and let me tell you what the Bible means. That's exactly what they began to do, the bishops and so forth. They read the Bible and they would interpret it and they would do all of their religious ceremonies in Latin and things like that, based on Jerome's Latin Vulgate. So you begin to have this type of thing creep into the church, 325 to 500 AD. And with that comes the next church age, Thyatira, which it goes from bad to worse and you get a lot of the persecutions. All right, come back to Matthew 13. Let's see if we can squeeze through all of these. Matthew 13, we have the next parable of leaven. The parable of leaven, look in Matthew 13, 33. Matthew 13, 33, another parable spake unto them, the kingdom of heaven is like an eleven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. Now Paul mentions leaven on a couple of places in Corinthians and also Galatians. He said a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And he referred to false doctrine. And Jesus actually did the same thing when he told the disciples one time. I don't have the reference off the top of my head. I want to say Matthew 14 maybe. But he said, he said, beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees, of the leaven of the Pharisees. Here it is right here, Matthew 16. Matthew 16, 11. There's a good verse. How is it that you do not understand? I spake it not to you concerning bread, that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine. So leaven is false doctrine, just a little bit corrupts. Like I told you before, you got all this wheat, but then you got the tares coming in the middle of it, it messes it up. Well, you know, Mormons believe in Jesus Christ. Okay, great, let's all just join hands and sing kumbaya. They don't believe in the same Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and Lucifer are brothers in the Mormon religion. And the Mormons believe in other gods. And the fact that you're going to become a god and a goddess one day if you follow their teachings and you'll populate your own planet one day. And so that's crazy teaching. And so when you say, well, they believe such and such, yeah, there's false doctrine coming in and just a little bit can really twist it up. They may use the same names and terms, but it just takes a little bit. And so notice another element here, this parable, this woman is mentioned, a woman in teaching is always a bad thing because a woman is told not to teach nor usurp authority. Now notice Revelation 2 with the church that we have of Thyatira. Look in Revelation 2.18. angel of the church of Thyatira write, These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet as like fine brass. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel." Was Jezebel good back in the Old Testament? No. Remember she stirred up Ahab to do evil. She was the daughter of the king of the Zidonians and they worshiped Baal. wicked woman. And Elijah, she went against Elijah and tried to get his head. Verse 20, that woman Jezebel which calleth herself a prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Verse 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. And I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts. And I will give unto every one of you according to your works. But unto you I say, and unto the rest, and Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, there is a doctrine issue, which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak. I will put upon you none other burden, but that ye but that which ye have already hold fast till I come and he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end to him will I give power over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers even as I have received of my father and I will give unto him the morning star he that hath the near to let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches so here we have the church of thy retire which matches the time period around five hundred to one During this time, about 850, Charlemagne, 800 Charlemagne was crowned by Pope Leo. welded in when you really begin to see the church state system in other words the pope was doing his thing but not without the king and the king and the pope and the pope had power over the king and you begin to see the crusades come to bear in the early crusades alright so we have the parable of leaven that seems to match up really well now we have three more left I don't think we can get them done unless we just rush through them so we probably ought to put on the brakes Let me give you this real quick and I had done this outline of the churches before. If you are taking notes, the Church of Ephesus will be the departing church. They start off good, but then they depart. You have a quarter that does well, but then three quarters of it departs. That's the early church. The Church of Smyrna would be the discriminated church. So the departing church, the discriminated church. The Church of Pergamos would be the deviating church. And then the church of Thyatira would be the deceived church. So you can see this thing progressively gets worse. What you'll notice in each church age however you'll notice there's always a remnant. God always leaves himself a witness. And I don't know about you but I want to be in that remnant. I want to be in that group that the Lord says there's a few of you that are still toeing the line. You know the rest of them are gone off there they're doing whatever and they've thrown doctrine out the window they've thrown the Bible out the render and they're all just worshiping and entertaining and doing all that kind of stuff. You're you're towing the line. Here's my question to the majority of what's called evangelical Christianity today. If they are not the worldly church where are they. Or are there no bad churches. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of like, okay, where are they then? The Bible prophesies at the end of the age, and we'll see it when we get to the Revelation church age, the thing goes to pieces. It's apostate. And somebody's left holding the bag, and I want to be in that group left holding the bag, doing the right thing, serving God, and staying the course. And so I think when we look at these parables in a whole panoramic view, I know it's a lot to kind of soak in, but we can get from that this overlap from the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God there are there is application with these parables and I'm gonna break them down we're gonna after we get done with all of this we're gonna have one message per parable and we'll get some real personal application from that so it's a lot of real helpful I think material for us all right let's all stand to be dismissed