Messianic Viewpoint

Guest (Female): Welcome to Shalom Ariel and to this eighth sermon in the book of Revelation with Messianic leader Jacques Isaac Gabizon. Life is made up of striking contrasts. For example, light and dark contrasts are what makes paintings so beautiful. Contrasting colors and shadows, even in foods, we have great contrasts. What a difference to my usual spices of salt and pepper and garlic when I first tasted the wonderful cooking of my mother-in-law, cumin and turmeric and coriander. What a contrast to what I knew before. Contrasts can illustrate important lessons. Think about the prodigal son, who he was before he left home and then when he came back.

He repented, he was changed. What a contrast. Today we're going to hear about Laodicea, a church that was not a hot nor cold, but held on to a middle ground with no contrasts at all. It was called lukewarm, a mixture of hot and cold, like one who stops between two opinions and tries to enjoy them both at the same time. But Yeshua told us that we can't. We can't afford to be lukewarm. We must contrast that attitude of lukewarmness with an attitude of passion for the Lord. We need to be zealous and committed as the deer pants after the water brook.

So the true believer must seek rivers of living water, the presence of God himself to quench the otherwise unquenchable thirst. Let's be like Yeshua in contrast to the world. As we continue entering into worship with him, may we let go of what is old and put on the new man. Let's not be complacent, but contrast the silence with loud and joyful praises in our hearts and in the words that we use. Let us praise him with everything that we have in Yeshua's name. Stay tuned to the study on the book of Revelation with Messianic leader Jacques Isaac Gabizon.

Shalom. Shalom.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: Shalom. Shalom and blessings to each one here and each one listening to us through Facebook, YouTube and other medias. You know, this past week has surely kept most of us challenged and in prayer concerning the outcome of the presidential election. We receive many emails of encouragement, by the way, about the Tuesday evening prayer time that was recorded here at Bet Ariel. I want to tell you it was a real blessing to pray. It just demonstrates once again how important our coming together, whether live or by satellite, is when it comes to prayer. May these meditation and the prayers continue their way to the throne of grace because it's not yet finished.

We know that these days ahead are scented by the anticipation of end time soon approaching. We feel it, don't you feel it? And while we wait, we pray and we stand strong and we get ready for any opportunity the Lord gives us to share and to be a witness to those who need to hear and be encouraged. Now considering the recent news about the Trump and the Biden, how must those in Israel be disappointed? Many of them thinking that this was the beginning of the end of the conflict in the Middle East, a work that Trump had begun.

Do you know that as soon as Trump was seen losing the election, it did not take time for others to revive and voice their hatred once again against Israel? And that the Bible declares, by the way, is an everlasting hatred, one that will not go away with peace treaties. This past Wednesday, while Israel Parliament was voting on the Bahrain deal, 138 countries in the United Nation voted in favor of a resolution that would eradicate the Jewish people historical connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, told the committee that the resolution, and I quote, he says completely ignores the link between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, our holiest site.

It seems that they are coming back with a vengeance, but the Bible it's clear, the temple will be rebuilt there and I believe very soon. Iran also could not let go of this golden opportunity. So on the same day, it was reported that its supreme leader blamed Israel for the recent beheading of a French teacher in France, that is. Okay, he said today the main enemies of Islam are the arrogant powers of Zionism. Trump may remind us of King Josiah, who lived before the Babylonian diaspora and brought so much reformation in Israel. It looked like the wars could have been averted, but what just Josiah could not change is the heart of man.

Only this God could change. However, can he still win the election? It would be a miracle. It would be a miracle. However, prophecies tell us that someone else, an individual of great charisma and power, will follow the same path as Trump and convince the world of a seeming peace, that one that would last only three and a half years. He would not eradicate this hatred. On the contrary, he will personify hatred himself when he turns against Israel. This would then follow with the great tribulation and world wars and that those that are described actually in the book we are studying like the book of Revelation.

Trump may very well have been have played that is to some degree the role of a herald, someone who warns us that the Antichrist activity are well on the way. But today we're looking at another side of the end time prophecies, that of the church in the end time where it follows the same path as Israel. For the church, there will be not a diaspora as a judgment, but a turn about joining the world instead of saving it. However, the remnant of the Ecclesia will be removed from this great tribulation as Yeshua calls it. This is what we will learn from the two last churches, Laodicea and Philadelphia.

But before we get there, I would like to begin with the message that is with a story. It's a story about an old man who had just learned how to read. He wanted so much to learn just so that he could read his Bible. So as soon as he was able to make sense of words and sentences, he began his journey into the scriptures beginning with the book of Revelation. One day, the pastor of the congregation he attended noticed how he was reading and asked him what he was reading. So the man answered the book of Revelation.

Surprised, the pastor asked him if he understood it. The man answered, oh yes, I understand it. So the pastor asked him to tell him what he understood. Very quietly, the old man answered, it means that Jesus is going to win. Right? He understood it all right. By the way, this is what the best commentary I've ever heard about the book of Revelation. Yeshua is going to win. Yes, that is the Bible's perfect prediction and prophecy and that is the confidence we need to live in as we face the future when and only God alone knows exactly when the rivers of judgment will begin to rise once again.

Now before we start, as it is our tradition, let's pray for our children. If you have your child with you, put your hand around her or him and you know, or get them closer to you. This is a gift from God, by the way. It is a gift from God. Blessed be his name, whose glorious kingdom is coming and is forever and ever. Our father and king, we as one congregation lift up our children to your throne and pray for great blessings and protection for each one of them. We pray that their love for you will grow and increase in Yeshua's name.

As they are being taught the word, we pray that they will develop an eternal perspective and purpose not an earthly one. Help them to see love through you. Help them to realize you comforting and strengthening presence with and within them. I pray that they will set their minds on things above and we pray in the name of the one sitting at your right hand. Yeshua Amen and amen. So let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter three. Today and the next week, we will continue to follow the church in history with a special emphasis on the church of Philadelphia.

It is this church which holds a very special link to the work done for the Jews and Israel in hearing the gospel, something that was lacking in other churches. I believe we are now living the latter days of Philadelphia where believers have witnessed these past numbers of century how this church took hold of its God-given responsibility to provoke Jews to jealousy and bring them to the word. But this is widening down. It is. Philadelphia, however, is still alive and well today, but it is overlaced by the beginning, I believe, of Laodicea, the one that Jesus spews out.

This one seems to be the one which will carry on into the tribulation. So it is Philadelphia's work which will bring us right into chapter four of Revelation where we see the church raptured and in heaven. This is when Laodicea takes over here on earth and defies all the characteristic of what a true church that is is supposed to be. But Laodicea did not just appear. Its history was a long time in the making. From Ephesus, the first church which began to lose its first love, this love is not found in Laodicea. And then the three churches which covered the dark ages of the church over the last 1,700 years did contribute to engender this monster of a church that is Laodicea.

While Sardis was pronounced dead by Jesus, now Laodicea is twice dead. We will learn that even if an institution is named a church, it actually could be godless and Christless. But how did it get there? This is what we'll attempt to find out today by looking at the history of the church and compare its words and action with the scriptures. This is a necessary exercise so that we can be well prepared to face its fast growth today. Let us begin with the church, this church of Laodicea. This final church is today beginning to rise and it will take its place of prominence, I believe again, in the tribulation time.

Let's begin by reading verses 14 to 18 of Revelation three. These are Yeshua's harshest words to a what is supposed to be a congregation of God. To the angel of the church in Laodicea, write the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation says this. I know your deeds that you are neither cold or hot. I wish you were cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have a need of nothing and you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed.

And I solve to anoint your eye so that you may see. To this church, Yeshua presents himself as what? The amen, the faithful and the true witness. This title is in direct contrast to everything that Laodicea is not. Saying amen to God and being faithful and true witness of the word. He also reminds them that he is the beginning of the creation of God, that he is the alpha and their creator. Even though many today are redefining the divinity of the Messiah, they forgot him and indeed this is another sign of losing once first love.

But see how this final form of the church is two things, two things we should see. Lukewarm and very rich. Rich of the things of this world, not of the things of God. Both these things are a recipe which angers God. What does it mean to be lukewarm? This is when everything and anything goes. This is when there's no absolute truth. This is when all religions become valid, a valid way to God. This is when Yeshua is just like any other religious leader and no more. The only way, the only truth and the life. This is when the strict and ignorant words of the Bible are not taken with the same seriousness anymore.

Their significance is changed and altered and becomes at par, at par in authority with men's word. This is when marriage, a covenant made between a man and a woman is longer bounded by the rules that God and them to have. This is when abortion is readily accepted as a free acceptable choice. These are the things which anger God. This is what would lead us into the great tribulation. But see how oblivious and so unmindful of these things this church, Laodicea had become with time. It is so rich, so powerful. It thinks it or it's already in the millennium.

Jesus uses three descriptions to identify the outward condition. See verse 17. It says at all. It is rich, it is wealthy and in need of nothing. This is what they thought. The first two words are basically the same words, okay? Plousios and Ploutheo. The repetition means very rich, as if they were drowning into their riches. But God's interpretation of these riches is given through five synonyms found in the same verse 17. He calls them wretches, miserable, poor, blind and naked. These are the words of Yeshua. See how the perspective of things went so far from God's perspective.

They surely did not read their Bibles every day. But in these words, we can feel a very a very disappointed Messiah. Number five, for there are five qualities here, is usually the precious number of grace. But it is here turned upside down and number five is here seen as a complete downfall, like the five I will of Satan, if you remember, in Isaiah 14. They too wanted to ascend to heaven by thinking they could build the millennium themselves on earth. They too wanted to exalt their throne above God. They too wanted to seat above God and ascend above God, for they did not believe in him anymore.

So you know, we don't believe in him, you become like him, right? This is what they thought. They too wanted to be like the most high. And it seems that Yeshua is not only angry but sad. He's sad and so heavy-hearted. I want to tell you the words also mean. The first word wretched also means suffering, distressed and afflicted. But this is the doctrine, the condition of one who is away from God as all their worldly riches were just a game. It's fake and will just disappear. The second miserable, is from the word Elios, meaning pity.

Pity for Jesus really pities them. The third, poor, really means to crouch, right? Almost to the ground. It is the word for beggar, a destitute man. Blind and naked speak of themselves. So they really are suffering and miserable and poor and blind and naked. You see the contrast? First, how man sees himself and how God sees them. This is why we need to read our scriptures and to see how God thinks. And second, how terrible, the terrible condition we reach when we are without God. Let's remember that Laodicea means people ruling or people seizing, today to this point.

We learn a lot reading through Revelation two and three, but what are the solid facts of who are these churches? Let us ask a simple question. Who was the predominant church or denomination who was there during the time of Pergamon, Thyatira and Sardis? And what church leads the growth even today of Laodicea? Now we need to call a spade a spade and be very honest about it. The predominant church during the last 1,700 years of these dark ages of the church is the Catholic Church. We first first and foremost recognized that it did some in some degrees produce actually tremendous fruits when some of its members held on and defended some fundamental biblical values.

It did. It brought blessings, much blessing to this world by building orphanages, schools and hospitals. Some of its members did hold unto the word of God through the ages. We need to recognize this. I can think of a Jesuit by the name of Francisco Ribera, who wrote a book on Bible prophecy in the late 1500 and a very sound one. Another Jesuit Chilean by the name of Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book entitled The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty and its pages he taught on the rapture. Interesting that both these Jesuits were Jewish. And the reason I chose to point them out among others is to mark that in some way segment of this church became a refuge for some Jewish believers.

Like Yeshua teaches in Revelation two and three, there's always a remnant within each denomination and perhaps congregation, but these were a minority, a minority. And godly and and biblical action of this church throughout the last 1,700 years or so far outweighs the work of just some of its godly members. The reason why I'm speaking about this is because we need to realize and affirm what they have introduced and enforced as a major and destructive false doctrines. We need to know this because it is still happening in our day. The predominant and most powerful Christian denomination today is the Catholic Church and many especially in the Jewish community believe that it represents true Christianity.

It does not.

Guest (Female): Shalom Ariel is a daily radio program emphasizing the Jewish perspective of scripture. God is not through dealing with Israel, nor will he renege any of the promises he has made to her. Our teacher for this program, Jacques Isaac Gabizon, is a Messianic Jewish believer and Messianic leader at Beth Ariel congregation right here in Montreal. If you've been encouraged by the messages, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 1888 685 5902 or you may write us at info at Beth Ariel, b e t h a r i e l all one word, dot c a.

You are also welcome to join us for our Saturday morning services. We are located at 6297 Monkland Boulevard, corner of Madison in NDG. The message is given in English, but we do offer simultaneous translation into French and Russian. Services begin at 11:00 a.m. We have Shabbat school for children of all ages up to and including teens. You may also download audio messages from our website at Beth Ariel dot c a and enjoy other in-depth teaching from Jacques Isaac. If you would like to sign up for informative newsletters, log on to our website and add your name to our email list.

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