Kids church time – Pentacost

The church of Ephesus. They were theologically correct but without love. This is very dangerous. John had been a pastor there in the past. They knew what was right and wrong from a theological standpoint. And they probably too great pride in being right. Pride is always a danger and it leads us into a bad place.

They were good at rejecting false teaching but they had departed from the love that had at the beginning. So the message from God to the church of Ephesus is – REPENT! This is the danger when you have been a Christian for a long time. You have done all the right things. Attended church, taken notes of the sermons, taught Sunday school, done everything right. You can fall into a trap of “knowing” that you are right. But maybe you are not. Maybe you are lacking one important thing. If you don’t repent of that pride, God will take away your light. That is the message to Ephesus. You MUST have love!

Who were the Nicolaitans? The Bible does not tell us exactly except that God hated them. But there are scholars who have studied this and from them we know that they were people who called themselves Christians but practiced sexual immorality and idol worship. God hates that. If you are living a life full of sin and are still calling yourself a Christian, you need to repent!

The church of Smyrna was suffering persecution. And Jesus only had good things to say about this church. The people were being betrayed by those that they knew. In the Roman empire it was required to offer a sacrifice to the emperor each year. Only the Jews were exempt for this. But the Jews were pointing out that the Christians were not offering the required sacrifices and were not Jews. They had kicked the Christians out of the synagogue and then informed on them. The Christians of Smyrna hated the Jews and were being persecuted by the romans for their belief. Jesus said the he knows the slander against you. He knows they are lies! There is a crown of life waiting for you.

Jesus further says that those who stay true to the Gospel to the end, will in no way be harmed by the second death. What is that? Everyone dies once except the generation who is alive when He returns. That one death is not so bad. But if you have rejected Jesus then you don’t have Him to stand up for you when you die. You will be thrown into the pits of hell. That is the second death and it is far worse.

The church of Pergamum is in a town where Satan lives and rules. But Jesus says that this church still clings to His name and have not denied their faith in Him. But some fell for Balaam’s error. This is a false teaching. Balaam told the king that he could defeat Israel if he could get them to forget their faith and move away from it. We can compromise our life by making anything more important than God. It is a very real danger in our culture. We can make an idol out of money or our job or so many other things. We must be very careful!

Keep your eyes on Jesus. Keep your ears listening to Jesus and watch out for the dangers that are lurking out there. There are people who are trying to lure you away from Jesus. God wants to rescue you and your friends from that.