A note from the Author, Pastor Brian Peart:
I was preparing myself for the recording of another episode of my Christian podcast, The Great Awareness (available wherever you get your podcasts), and the Lord led me to Revelation chapters 2 and 3. As I was reading them, I realized something amazing: These are the last words of Jesus before He comes again. If you have a red-letter Bible, you will see that chapters 2 and 3 are completely red letters, just the words of Jesus. As I read through these verses, God showed me some amazing things, and the basis of this book was born.
Revelation chapters 2 and 3 consist of seven letters to the churches dictated by Jesus and written down by John—the same John who was the “disciple Jesus loved.” It was written around AD 90–95, while he was in prison on the island of Patmos. That means they were dictated by Jesus about sixty years after his crucifixion—enough time for false doctrines and teachings to get hold of the church. It is almost like Jesus shares, one last time, what the Scripture really says and how we are really supposed to live. It is like a final correction from the Master to a group of people that may be starting to get off course. The letters were written to specific churches in the area around Asia. But like so much of what Jesus taught to His disciples and instructed, the applications apply to us today. These letters were written to churches, to saved people—people who had asked Jesus into their hearts. If you are reading this and you have not asked Jesus into your heart, then please get that right first. But if you have asked Jesus into your heart, then you are saved, and so are the people Jesus instructs in these chapters. And that is very telling. In these seven churches you see a faithful church, a compromising church, a loveless church, a lukewarm church, and so on. And around us today we see the same things: faithful Christians, Christians who compromise, Christians who don’t love, Christians who are lukewarm, and so on. The letters all take a similar pattern; He says He knows their works, tells them what they are doing well, tells them what they are lacking, and tells them what to do to fix it. As I read through them, I was stunned at the ramifications of what Jesus was saying and how different it was from what so many churches are teaching today, and I felt that it had to be shared.
Before we dive into each letter and what they share, I want to be clear about a couple of key points.
- I am not some high-profile guru preacher. I am a simple Christian who clings to one core belief—that the Bible is true and without error. If Jesus says in Scripture, “X,” and the world is teaching me “Y,” then I am sticking with X—with what Jesus says. If two scriptures seemingly contradict each other, neither scripture is wrong; we just don’t understand yet how they can both be true, so we have to increase our study and learning and growth until Jesus reveals the connection and truth between the two.
- If the doctrine I am hearing is different from what I see in Scripture, then either the doctrine is wrong or I don’t understand the Scripture clearly, but the flaw is not the Scripture. The Scripture is truth, and we need to mold ourselves to it, not twist it to support what we want to believe.
My great fear is that we are being taught a watered-down, twisted version of the gospel that is not leading people down the right path. Some of what we will uncover may go against some things you were taught; that is certainly true of me. But at the end of the day, these are red letters; Jesus is speaking. I am not adding anything to it or taking anything away from it. I am just sharing what it says and asking the question, “What does this mean?” I challenge you to read with an open mind. As we go through each letter, I ask that you search yourself, be real with yourself, and ask, “Which one of these churches am I most like?” There is no judgment here; I have gone through this myself and will share my thoughts openly as we go through each chapter. But God knows your heart; be real with Him and invite Him in. As you figure out which one of these you are, simply look at what Jesus says to do and do that thing. Jesus truly does not want any to perish. He tells us clearly what to do; we just have to read it and take it to heart. So take stock of yourself, get real with Jesus, and do what He shares. It is a simple task.
In this book, we will put our preconceived beliefs aside and get down to what Scripture actually says. There are a lot of beliefs out there; you had better make sure the thing you believe in is actual truth. I read of a pastor who told a great story once. He was on a plane, and next to him was a woman. When she found out he was a pastor, she started telling him about what she believed about God. As he told it, the god she believed in was not the God he knew. So when she was done, he didn’t argue with her. He pointed to a man two rows up and said, “You see that man there? He is an adult video star, and he is cheating on his wife with the woman next to him.” The lady, shocked, said, “How do you know this?” The pastor said, “Oh I don’t; that’s just what I believe about him.” And then he went on to explain who Jesus really is. As I read that I thought it was brilliant. Listen, we have to be careful with what we believe. There are many people, pastors, and influencers teaching things that are not scriptural or that take one section of Scripture and twist it and ignore whole sections of scripture. If we want to be right, if we want to get our doctrine right, we need to read what the Bible actually says and allow it to be the authority on God, not the guru with the cool podcast. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 to “test all things; hold fast to what is good.” Let’s put that pastor, that podcast influencer, that algorithm to the test and see if it matches up to Scripture and then hold fast to the scriptural truth!
I truly believe Jesus is coming soon. In 2 Peter 3:8, Peter says, “Don’t overlook this one fact, with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.” When I was reading that back in 2018, God impressed upon me that He was in the grave two days, which equals two thousand years, and the third day, the day of His rising, was one thousand years. In Revelation 20 we see that after He comes back, Christ sets up a one-thousand-year reign on this earth; that is the third day, the third one-thousand-year period. That means that the span of time from His death till His second coming is two thousand years. Most scholars put His death around AD 33, some as early as AD 30; but either way, two thousand years after that will be somewhere around 2030–2033. That is the end of the church age. That is just five or so years away! No one knows the exact day or hour, but we can know when it is close. Hosea 6:2 says, “After 2 days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.” This could be His original resurrection, except it says we will live in his presence. After He was resurrected, He went up to be seated at the right hand of God until He comes again. Now, we could say the Holy Spirit was sent so we are technically in His presence that way, but it seems to be more accurately discerned as Him actually coming back two thousand years later and dwelling with us on this earth, as stated in Revelation 20. And you do not have to look far to see overwhelming hints that Jesus is indeed coming soon. The wars, earthquakes, fires, attacks on Israel—it all points to this. He is coming for His bride. He is coming soon. The question is, Will we be ready? In these letters, Jesus tells us what to do and how to be ready. Will you listen? With that behind us, let’s begin to “hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Hope you ENJOY the Audio, Narrated by Brian Peart
Audiobook Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: The First Letter: The Loveless Church
Chapter 2: The Second Letter: The Persecuted Church
Chapter 3: The Third Letter: The Compromising Church
Chapter 4: The Fourth Letter: The Corrupt Church
Chapter 5: The Fifth Letter: The Dead Church
Chapter 6: The Sixth Letter: The Faithful Church
Chapter 7: The Seventh Letter: The Lukewarm Church
Chapter 8: Back to Relationship: Defining the Good Bride
Conclusion: How Do We Get There?
Appendix: Doctrinal Thoughts
Check out Pastor Peart at
WWW.THEGREATAWARENESSCHURCH.ORG
