November 12, 2025 • 22 mins
Wind on the mic, ruins underfoot, and a challenge that won’t let go. We recorded on location in Ephesus to trace how John and Paul preached into a bustling trade hub where pagan worship, philosophy, and profit collided—and why the words to the church in Revelation 2 still land like a bell in our moment. With help from a brilliant Muslim guide who knows the Scriptures, the myths, and the streets, we uncover a vivid picture of early house churches, a merchant who became a courier of good news to Rome, and the tension that rises when love for God disrupts the economy of desire.
What unfolds is part travelogue, part heart check. We read Christ’s message to Ephesus—commendation for endurance, a rebuke for drifting from first love, a promise to those who overcome—and hold it next to the way we live now. Freedom of religion has quietly shifted into freedom from religion, and the vacuum is filling with idols old and new: screens, status, and the soft tyranny of convenience. If worship doesn’t shape our public life, something else will. The call isn’t outrage; it’s return. Remember, repent, and recover the works that love once fueled.
We also reflect on the beauty of public devotion, from the call to prayer echoing across Turkey to the steady courage of speaking truth without spite. You don’t change a culture by silencing rivals; you change it by outloving, outserving, and living the truth in plain sight. Walk the marble streets with us, stand where John preached, and consider what it would mean to make first love first again. If this conversation moves you, share it with a friend, subscribe for next week’s deep dive, and leave a review to help more people find the journey. What “first works” are you returning to today?
Notes:Editor’s note & sources:
Patmos & authorship: Revelation 1:9 places John on Patmos (Aegean) by exile; the traditional view is that this John is the Apostle, though scholars discuss authorship.
Revelation 2:1–7 (letter to Ephesus); Acts 19:23–41 (idol trade & riot); John exiled on Patmos (Rev 1:9). Visitor/guide figures in the episode were rough; I’ve linked brief background sources and clarifications here.
- The “seven churches” follow a real postal/travel route in Asia Minor; John’s exile to Patmos is the setting for Revelation (Rev. 1:9). Visitor/guide numbers I mention are rough; site vs. national totals differ.
- Seven churches & the route: The order (Ephesus → Smyrna → Pergamum → Thyatira → Sardis → Philadelphia → Laodicea) tracks a Roman postal route in Asia Minor—why the letters are in that sequence.
- Visitor numbers: The ancient city welcomed about 2.7 million visitors in 2024 (a record), not “80 million.” Türkiye as a whole hosted about 62 million visitors that year.
- Guides: There are roughly 12k–15k licensed tour guides in Türkiye (nationally), not in Ephesus alone.
- Mary near Ephesus: The House of the Virgin Mary near Ephesus is a long-standing pilgrimage tradition visited by popes; the Catholic Church hasn’t ruled on its authenticity. It’s venerated by Christians and many Muslims.
- Acts in Ephesus: Paul’s preaching threatened the idol trade; Demetrius the silversmith incited a riot (Acts 19:23–41)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello, gang.
Welcome to this week's episode.
Before the episode begins, Iwant to give you a quick note.
You're about to hear a fieldrecording.
I made an Ephesus turkey.
It's raw, it's got some noise inthe background because I'm on
location at the ancient ruins.
And I'm leaving it as is to beauthentic.
There's a couple numbers inhistorical details that I
(00:21):
mentioned.
They're broad.
I've added brief editors' notesbelow in the show notes.
My aim is not to debate ourfaiths, but to let Jesus' word
to Ephesus challenge me.
Humble in public devotion.
Challenging me to that humbleand public devotion.
Thank you for listening withGrace.
(00:43):
Okay, here's the tape.
Welcome, welcome to the Body forJunior Show.
I am doing a podcast fromEphesus, Turkey.
The book of Ephesians.
This incredible historicalspiritual convergence of an
(01:07):
ancient time where the ApostleJohn, the Apostle Paul, and a
virgin Mary come after Jesus'crucifixion and resurrection.
Mary comes in hiding.
We went to her house yesterday.
And the conversation that I hadwith our tour guide, who's a
Muslim of Islam faith, was juststaggering, mind-blowing.
(01:30):
I have tossed and turned allnight long over how similar we
are after learning a lot abouttheir belief system.
And I'm going to get in andbreak that down on my next
podcast.
Today, I want to just give thestory that I've learned about
the Apostle John from a Muslimtour guide who was just this
(01:55):
badass.
And he understood the pagangods.
He understood the historicalsignificance of where he is and
what we were touring.
And he was also a student of theChristian Bible, our Bible.
He was bringing up terms, youknow, how the first house
(02:16):
churches were formed for theChristians.
It was just an incredibledialogue with a man of a
different faith than I have.
And he's given these tours toChristians.
And he's a Muslim.
And his awareness and his wisdomand his knowledge of his
(02:38):
knowledge of Christianity wasjust mind-blowing.
I learned a ton from him.
And I'm going to break thatdown.
And a few of the things that welearned was first of all,
Ephesus, which I didn't know,was like this huge trading
route.
It was from the seaport towalking to the city, was only a
(02:58):
few miles.
And you had the Greek and theRomans trading in converging
cultures.
You have Greek and Roman, youhave the Greek, the what is it,
the Greco-Roman architecturaldesigns, the convergence, the
mixing of two cultures.
And then a city of Ephesus,which was this incredible, just
(03:20):
powerhouse of an ancient city oftrading, of energy, of
knowledge, of debates, and ofdemonic pagan worship, the gods.
And this tour guide, there's16,000 tour guides in uh
(03:41):
Ephesus.
There's 80 million tourists ayear that visit the sites.
They don't have enough tourguides.
They get certified, they'reeducated.
And this tour guy brought upthat he goes, look, it we have
80 million we had last year.
He thinks in 2025 it's up over ahundred million.
(04:02):
He said in the last 60 days, theamount of people that have come
here, it's just overwhelming.
And he got into that dialogue,among other dialogue that him
and I had separately.
That I'm going to dive into,just not today.
What I want to talk about todayis the inspiration of the book
of Revelation, which I did notunderstand.
(04:24):
Revelation scares me.
That book just gives me anxietyto try to decipher what it says.
It's one of the hardest booksI've ever read.
I've been in some great churchesthat have done a great job on
breaking it down, which I hopeto get in front of these pastors
and talk about that.
But what I was not aware of isthat you had Paul, the Apostle
(04:47):
Paul, is preaching in Ephesusand is warned, you gotta slow
this role down.
Like you're nuts.
You're gonna end up killed.
Then you have John preachingfrom the uh square that I'm
literally standing in.
And he's on top of the rocks.
I'm gonna take a picture.
John's gonna take a picture ofme.
(05:08):
And he's sitting here daily justpreaching.
And to the left, about 20 yards,maybe 25 yards, is the
marketplace where trades werehappening.
And I'll be announced to me, hehas this relationship with the
number one merchant, like thebig kahuna, the Macy's of the
(05:29):
old Ephesus, of the mall, right?
The the big the big developer.
And he is the merchant of themerchants.
And he's traveling to Rome 72times in his life span, which is
a month trip.
So 72 months he spends on aboat.
And he's bringing from Ephesusto Rome pamphlets, notes, word,
(05:56):
and he's he's on fire for theLord.
And John and Paul get him firedup, and as and he's bringing
messages and he's spreading thegospel in Rome.
They're doing this through amerchant.
His ministry as a merchant isbringing information and
spreading it and reporting backto John and the Apostle Paul,
(06:17):
which I had no idea.
So they're making like an inroadhere in Ephesus, while at the
same time, they're disruptingtrade.
They're preaching righteousness,they're preaching Jesus Christ,
the Lord and Savior, and youhave people that are coming to
Ephesus to party, to spend theirmoney, and a lot of the
(06:38):
merchants are being disrupted.
So you've got this collisionthat starts happening of the
word, of saving and livingrighteousness, and then you have
commerce and a lot of money atstake, and people are being
impacted commercially.
And it's not good.
(06:59):
We're talking about pagan gods,pagan worship, orgies, just a
very sexual, high-energy partyplace, fun.
And these guys are coming in andjust renting on that parade.
And John gets exiled.
So the he gets exiled to anisland not far from here.
And the Torah guide pointed to amountain.
(07:20):
He said, John would also hide onoccasions.
He would go in hiding in themountains, and he's pointing to
where he said that he would hideup there, and he pointed to a
mountain where John would hide,okay, from the authorities.
And the book of Ephesians goesthrough letters, okay.
The the the the Paul writes thebook of Ephesians, but John
(07:44):
writes the book of Revelation,and I'm going to go into chapter
two real quick here.
As I'm sitting here looking atwhere he preached, he gets
exiled to an island not far fromhere, and then he has this
vision and he writes the book ofRevelation.
This is the Lord.
He takes John's exile, beingoutcasted, and he turns it into
(08:11):
one of the most powerful books,probably the most controversial
books in the entire Bible.
Revelation.
And he writes to the Church ofEphesus, chapter two.
So he writes to seven churches.
And the seven churches,according to our Torah guide,
are all within a trading routefrom Ephesus, where I am sitting
(08:31):
right now.
The seven churches that they'rewarning are within a trading
route that was traveled fromwhere I'm sitting at.
To the Church of Ephesus,chapter two, to the angel of the
church of Ephesus.
These are the words of him whoholds the seven stars in his
(08:52):
right hand and walks among theseven lampstands.
I know your deeds, your hardwork, your perseverance.
I know that you cannot toleratewicked people, that you have
tested those who claim to beapostles, but are not, and have
found them false.
(09:13):
You have you have persevered andyou have endured hardships for
my name and have not grownworry.
Yet I hold this against you.
You have forsaken the love youhad at first.
Consider how far you havefallen.
Repent and do the things you didfirst.
(09:35):
If you do not repent, I willcome to you, remove your
lampshade from its place.
But you have this in your favor.
You hate the practice of theMichelesians, which I also hate.
Whoever has ears, let them hearwhat the Spirit says to the
churches, to the one who isvictorious, I give the right to
(09:58):
eat from the tree of life, whichis the paradise of God.
So there's a little footnotehere.
Nicolatians.
The Nicolaitians were a groupthat troubled the churches of
Ephesians.
Apparently, their teachings andpractices were immoral, perhaps
(10:19):
even idolatrous.
So there's a lot of idols here.
We see them.
We see the ancient ruins of theof the idol worship, which I had
a very in-depth conversationwith a number of Muslims on this
vacation, on this trip.
And we're going to talk aboutthat on another podcast.
(10:40):
I touched on it on my lastpodcast.
But right now, as I'm sittinghere and I'm thinking of John,
what would we do if someone camealong and preached repent
America?
Your first love has fallen.
Come back to your first love.
I strongly believe our firstlove was God.
(11:04):
We were a nation that came outof and were freed from the
empire of the Brits.
And it's a miracle.
Like you just think about, youthink about George Washington,
you think about the battles, youthink about the weather
patterns, you think about how webecame free.
It's definitely by a higherpower.
And then there's this debatewe've been having since our
(11:25):
inception of freedom ofreligion.
And for some reason, we as acountry, come 2025, we have
interpreted over the decadesthat we're freedom from
religion.
Not freedom of, but we've kindof flipped it to freedom from
religion.
(11:46):
And it sounds like that's whatEphesus, the same life cycle
they went through, and they'repart of the book of Revelation.
And you have John warning themas he gets exiled for preaching
the truth.
Charlie Kirk, which inspired meto start talking about my faith
and be more public.
And then I further became more,frankly, motivated and inspired
(12:11):
by watching the Muslim faithhere in Turkey and how they
openly express their faithunapologetically.
It's just completelymind-blowing.
And we're going to dive intothat next week.
I've been tossing the turn atnight, just thinking, where do
we go so wrong?
And I'm starting with my family,myself, my time, and me focusing
(12:32):
on creating a betterrelationship of God with Jesus
Christ and expressing it likeright here and practicing it
through this podcast and holdingmyself accountable through this
podcast.
But I'm thinking about ourcountry and our complete
flipping of what we're supposedto be doing.
We're not freedom from religion.
We're freedom for religion, thefreedom to practice religion.
(12:56):
The first act of Congress byGeorge Washington was a prayer
in New York City after he'sinaugurated.
We have these Bibles that weswear these presidents into
office, and then there's justthis demonic behavior
afterwards.
And we're wondering why has ademonic dark world taking over
(13:19):
our kids, our school systems,our libraries, our movies, our
Hollywood, our TV screens, ourbehaviors.
Something's gonna take it overif we're completely walking away
from our creator who gave us ourfreedom in the hands of God.
We've been in the palm of hishands.
(13:40):
And the book of Revelations, tome, I never connected the dots
to who we are as America andwhat we need to do to repent
until this tour, until Ephesiansand listening and observing and
praying and just realizing whatJohn went through and his
preaching to this city, and I'mscaring the people going, What
are you doing?
We like our pagan gods.
(14:02):
What are you doing?
What is this guy doing heretrying to upset the apple car?
We all get along, we all likeour naked orgies, we like our
drunkenness, we like our debatesof philosophy, but we love our
pagan gods.
Get this guy out of here.
And that's what we've become inAmerica.
(14:23):
And I feel like if John was heretoday and he came in and he
preached, he would be exiled.
Charlie Kirk was assassinatedfor preaching the truth.
Truth doesn't have to bejudgmental.
John wasn't judging people.
Paul wasn't judging people,they're just speaking the truth.
(14:45):
Truth speaking has beensomething that we have
completely abandoned, abolishedfrom our country.
And sitting here, will Americabe the ruins that Ephesus it is
today?
Will it be the ruins?
Will we be just a history bookand a city of ruins?
(15:06):
Or will we be a blessed nationthat repents and you have all
this noise and the Muslims aregonna come in and take over?
Look at someone's gonna takeover.
Someone's gonna come in and takeover.
It's gonna be the devil, it'sgonna be another religious
group, or it's gonna be or it'sgonna be Christianity.
(15:27):
It's up to us who takes Americafrom here.
If we're gonna be apologetic andhiding from our faith, if we're
gonna be afraid to go to church,or if we're going to church
three or you know, times a year.
Let's see, my pastor has asaying for this.
(15:47):
And I look for I asked PastorBernard last night, hey, what's
Pastor Randy saying?
He calls these parish the peoplewho come to church three times a
week, the CEOs, the CEOs,Christmas and Easter only.
Sorry, three times a year.
Not three times a week, threetimes a year.
(16:09):
We're not gonna save our nation.
We're not gonna you we can'toutlaw the growth of a religion
in our country.
We have the freedom of religion,not the freedom from religion.
We can't outlaw Islamic faith.
We can't outlaw pagan worship,we can't outlaw anything, but we
(16:31):
can out worship, we canoutrepent, we can be proactive
in bring our faith forwardboldly and start preaching and
start talking about the truthand start getting back to our
godly foundation and not hidingfrom it and being embarrassed
(16:52):
from it.
We're not gonna outlaw anything.
So if there's prayer chants andMuslims in the background, which
I learned a lot about, we'regonna talk next week.
They're not offensive, by theway.
If there's Sharia law happeningin certain cities, that's
because Christianity has beenhiding.
That's because our cities, ourinstitutions will have a spirit.
(17:19):
It's either going to be areligious, godly spirit of some
sort, or it's gonna be a demonicspirit.
It's up to us what that spiritis.
But if we apologize and we cowdown and we try to be
politically correct, it will notbe Christianity.
It won't.
That is a continuation of theAmerican culture.
(17:45):
I had great conversations aboutwhat the chants are in Muslim.
Jen and I heard them five timesa day.
We had conversations about them.
They're not freaky.
They are their culture, theircall to prayer to get to the
mosque.
They're godly.
We had a conversation about umthe radicals in the Quran and
(18:06):
the interpretation.
And I can't wait to dive intoall that with you.
It's been an incredible journeyhere in Turkey.
I love the Turkish people.
We met incredible people, have alot of respect for the Muslim
faith.
What I've learned is justcompletely mind-blowing.
But what I do know and I haveseen, what I do have the
discernment of, is America isfalling.
(18:28):
Our lack of going to worship,our lack of going to church, our
lack of biblical values, ourCEO, our Christmas and Easter
only participation in our faith,won't play anymore.
We're either going to get backinto the word as a nation, or
another word is going to takeover our nation.
(18:50):
It's up to us.
It's up to us what we want tofeed our children in whether
it's demonic or whether it'sheavenly.
And I just want to have thatconversation here from Ephesus
to be authentic, that I wasinspired on.
And it's just an incredibleopportunity to have a
(19:12):
conversation about God, aboutthe apostles, about the risks
they took for truth telling.
Not judgmental.
It's we all have free will.
They told the truth and theywere persecuted for that truth,
which sounds like what's beenhappening in America for the
(19:34):
last decade, but it's beenboiling a frog.
It's been going on longer than adecade.
And the fact that Charlie Kirkwas murdered over preaching the
truth, and then his legacytrying to be destroyed, that he
was a racist and a bigot, andall this part of my French
bullshit is further evidence ofwhat the apostles went through.
(19:56):
And I hadn't I had listened toCharlie Kirk from day one.
And I have.
And I never saw him as anapostle until now.
And he's been murdered overdoing what John did and what
Paul did.
He didn't go in hiding.
(20:17):
He did it out in a tent in apublic square.
It sounds a lot like theapostles.
What will we do?
Will we be a city in ruins, acountry in ruins?
Will we be a country of demonicspirits?
Will we be a Christian country,an Islamic country, a Jewish
(20:40):
country?
I don't know.
That's up to us.
And I'm not picking on anyreligion.
I actually happen to have a lotof respect for the Jewish
culture and for now if they'respending time in Turkey, and I'm
going to spend more time divinginto the Islam faith.
(21:00):
I did pick up a Quran about ayear ago, and I just discovered
from my conversation with thisgentleman, I'm reading someone's
interpretation of the Quran.
Okay, I got to fix that.
We talked about the Quran, himand I went through it together
for about 15 minutes, thesimilarities.
(21:20):
And I'm going to read you apassage from uh the Quran on the
next podcast that you're goingto think is our Bible.
Like we are very similar, andthere are extremists, just like
we had problems in our ownChristianity of molestation and
of just complete demonicinfiltration of our holiness, of
(21:44):
our holy homes, of our holyleadership.
And I'm going to get into allthat.
Have a great week.
Read the Bible, pick upRevelations, read Ephesians,
read chapter two of Revelation,and just kind of come on a
journey with me.
Like this is where I am.
(22:05):
I'm an Ephesus.
This is crazy.
Have a great week.
God bless.
Enjoy.
Hello, gang.
Welcome to this week's episode.
Before the episode begins, Iwant to give you a quick note.
You're about to hear a fieldrecording.
I made an Ephesus turkey.
It's raw, it's got some noise inthe background because I'm on
location at the ancient ruins.
And I'm leaving it as is to beauthentic.
There's a couple numbers inhistorical details that I
(00:21):
mentioned.
They're broad.
I've added brief editors' notesbelow in the show notes.
My aim is not to debate ourfaiths, but to let Jesus' word
to Ephesus challenge me.
Humble in public devotion.
Challenging me to that humbleand public devotion.
Thank you for listening withGrace.
(00:43):
Okay, here's the tape.
Welcome, welcome to the Body forJunior Show.
I am doing a podcast fromEphesus, Turkey.
The book of Ephesians.
This incredible historicalspiritual convergence of an
(01:07):
ancient time where the ApostleJohn, the Apostle Paul, and a
virgin Mary come after Jesus'crucifixion and resurrection.
Mary comes in hiding.
We went to her house yesterday.
And the conversation that I hadwith our tour guide, who's a
Muslim of Islam faith, was juststaggering, mind-blowing.
(01:30):
I have tossed and turned allnight long over how similar we
are after learning a lot abouttheir belief system.
And I'm going to get in andbreak that down on my next
podcast.
Today, I want to just give thestory that I've learned about
the Apostle John from a Muslimtour guide who was just this
(01:55):
badass.
And he understood the pagangods.
He understood the historicalsignificance of where he is and
what we were touring.
And he was also a student of theChristian Bible, our Bible.
He was bringing up terms, youknow, how the first house
(02:16):
churches were formed for theChristians.
It was just an incredibledialogue with a man of a
different faith than I have.
And he's given these tours toChristians.
And he's a Muslim.
And his awareness and his wisdomand his knowledge of his
(02:38):
knowledge of Christianity wasjust mind-blowing.
I learned a ton from him.
And I'm going to break thatdown.
And a few of the things that welearned was first of all,
Ephesus, which I didn't know,was like this huge trading
route.
It was from the seaport towalking to the city, was only a
(02:58):
few miles.
And you had the Greek and theRomans trading in converging
cultures.
You have Greek and Roman, youhave the Greek, the what is it,
the Greco-Roman architecturaldesigns, the convergence, the
mixing of two cultures.
And then a city of Ephesus,which was this incredible, just
(03:20):
powerhouse of an ancient city oftrading, of energy, of
knowledge, of debates, and ofdemonic pagan worship, the gods.
And this tour guide, there's16,000 tour guides in uh
(03:41):
Ephesus.
There's 80 million tourists ayear that visit the sites.
They don't have enough tourguides.
They get certified, they'reeducated.
And this tour guy brought upthat he goes, look, it we have
80 million we had last year.
He thinks in 2025 it's up over ahundred million.
(04:02):
He said in the last 60 days, theamount of people that have come
here, it's just overwhelming.
And he got into that dialogue,among other dialogue that him
and I had separately.
That I'm going to dive into,just not today.
What I want to talk about todayis the inspiration of the book
of Revelation, which I did notunderstand.
(04:24):
Revelation scares me.
That book just gives me anxietyto try to decipher what it says.
It's one of the hardest booksI've ever read.
I've been in some great churchesthat have done a great job on
breaking it down, which I hopeto get in front of these pastors
and talk about that.
But what I was not aware of isthat you had Paul, the Apostle
(04:47):
Paul, is preaching in Ephesusand is warned, you gotta slow
this role down.
Like you're nuts.
You're gonna end up killed.
Then you have John preachingfrom the uh square that I'm
literally standing in.
And he's on top of the rocks.
I'm gonna take a picture.
John's gonna take a picture ofme.
(05:08):
And he's sitting here daily justpreaching.
And to the left, about 20 yards,maybe 25 yards, is the
marketplace where trades werehappening.
And I'll be announced to me, hehas this relationship with the
number one merchant, like thebig kahuna, the Macy's of the
(05:29):
old Ephesus, of the mall, right?
The the big the big developer.
And he is the merchant of themerchants.
And he's traveling to Rome 72times in his life span, which is
a month trip.
So 72 months he spends on aboat.
And he's bringing from Ephesusto Rome pamphlets, notes, word,
(05:56):
and he's he's on fire for theLord.
And John and Paul get him firedup, and as and he's bringing
messages and he's spreading thegospel in Rome.
They're doing this through amerchant.
His ministry as a merchant isbringing information and
spreading it and reporting backto John and the Apostle Paul,
(06:17):
which I had no idea.
So they're making like an inroadhere in Ephesus, while at the
same time, they're disruptingtrade.
They're preaching righteousness,they're preaching Jesus Christ,
the Lord and Savior, and youhave people that are coming to
Ephesus to party, to spend theirmoney, and a lot of the
(06:38):
merchants are being disrupted.
So you've got this collisionthat starts happening of the
word, of saving and livingrighteousness, and then you have
commerce and a lot of money atstake, and people are being
impacted commercially.
And it's not good.
(06:59):
We're talking about pagan gods,pagan worship, orgies, just a
very sexual, high-energy partyplace, fun.
And these guys are coming in andjust renting on that parade.
And John gets exiled.
So the he gets exiled to anisland not far from here.
And the Torah guide pointed to amountain.
(07:20):
He said, John would also hide onoccasions.
He would go in hiding in themountains, and he's pointing to
where he said that he would hideup there, and he pointed to a
mountain where John would hide,okay, from the authorities.
And the book of Ephesians goesthrough letters, okay.
The the the the Paul writes thebook of Ephesians, but John
(07:44):
writes the book of Revelation,and I'm going to go into chapter
two real quick here.
As I'm sitting here looking atwhere he preached, he gets
exiled to an island not far fromhere, and then he has this
vision and he writes the book ofRevelation.
This is the Lord.
He takes John's exile, beingoutcasted, and he turns it into
(08:11):
one of the most powerful books,probably the most controversial
books in the entire Bible.
Revelation.
And he writes to the Church ofEphesus, chapter two.
So he writes to seven churches.
And the seven churches,according to our Torah guide,
are all within a trading routefrom Ephesus, where I am sitting
(08:31):
right now.
The seven churches that they'rewarning are within a trading
route that was traveled fromwhere I'm sitting at.
To the Church of Ephesus,chapter two, to the angel of the
church of Ephesus.
These are the words of him whoholds the seven stars in his
(08:52):
right hand and walks among theseven lampstands.
I know your deeds, your hardwork, your perseverance.
I know that you cannot toleratewicked people, that you have
tested those who claim to beapostles, but are not, and have
found them false.
(09:13):
You have you have persevered andyou have endured hardships for
my name and have not grownworry.
Yet I hold this against you.
You have forsaken the love youhad at first.
Consider how far you havefallen.
Repent and do the things you didfirst.
(09:35):
If you do not repent, I willcome to you, remove your
lampshade from its place.
But you have this in your favor.
You hate the practice of theMichelesians, which I also hate.
Whoever has ears, let them hearwhat the Spirit says to the
churches, to the one who isvictorious, I give the right to
(09:58):
eat from the tree of life, whichis the paradise of God.
So there's a little footnotehere.
Nicolatians.
The Nicolaitians were a groupthat troubled the churches of
Ephesians.
Apparently, their teachings andpractices were immoral, perhaps
(10:19):
even idolatrous.
So there's a lot of idols here.
We see them.
We see the ancient ruins of theof the idol worship, which I had
a very in-depth conversationwith a number of Muslims on this
vacation, on this trip.
And we're going to talk aboutthat on another podcast.
(10:40):
I touched on it on my lastpodcast.
But right now, as I'm sittinghere and I'm thinking of John,
what would we do if someone camealong and preached repent
America?
Your first love has fallen.
Come back to your first love.
I strongly believe our firstlove was God.
(11:04):
We were a nation that came outof and were freed from the
empire of the Brits.
And it's a miracle.
Like you just think about, youthink about George Washington,
you think about the battles, youthink about the weather
patterns, you think about how webecame free.
It's definitely by a higherpower.
And then there's this debatewe've been having since our
(11:25):
inception of freedom ofreligion.
And for some reason, we as acountry, come 2025, we have
interpreted over the decadesthat we're freedom from
religion.
Not freedom of, but we've kindof flipped it to freedom from
religion.
(11:46):
And it sounds like that's whatEphesus, the same life cycle
they went through, and they'repart of the book of Revelation.
And you have John warning themas he gets exiled for preaching
the truth.
Charlie Kirk, which inspired meto start talking about my faith
and be more public.
And then I further became more,frankly, motivated and inspired
(12:11):
by watching the Muslim faithhere in Turkey and how they
openly express their faithunapologetically.
It's just completelymind-blowing.
And we're going to dive intothat next week.
I've been tossing the turn atnight, just thinking, where do
we go so wrong?
And I'm starting with my family,myself, my time, and me focusing
(12:32):
on creating a betterrelationship of God with Jesus
Christ and expressing it likeright here and practicing it
through this podcast and holdingmyself accountable through this
podcast.
But I'm thinking about ourcountry and our complete
flipping of what we're supposedto be doing.
We're not freedom from religion.
We're freedom for religion, thefreedom to practice religion.
(12:56):
The first act of Congress byGeorge Washington was a prayer
in New York City after he'sinaugurated.
We have these Bibles that weswear these presidents into
office, and then there's justthis demonic behavior
afterwards.
And we're wondering why has ademonic dark world taking over
(13:19):
our kids, our school systems,our libraries, our movies, our
Hollywood, our TV screens, ourbehaviors.
Something's gonna take it overif we're completely walking away
from our creator who gave us ourfreedom in the hands of God.
We've been in the palm of hishands.
(13:40):
And the book of Revelations, tome, I never connected the dots
to who we are as America andwhat we need to do to repent
until this tour, until Ephesiansand listening and observing and
praying and just realizing whatJohn went through and his
preaching to this city, and I'mscaring the people going, What
are you doing?
We like our pagan gods.
(14:02):
What are you doing?
What is this guy doing heretrying to upset the apple car?
We all get along, we all likeour naked orgies, we like our
drunkenness, we like our debatesof philosophy, but we love our
pagan gods.
Get this guy out of here.
And that's what we've become inAmerica.
(14:23):
And I feel like if John was heretoday and he came in and he
preached, he would be exiled.
Charlie Kirk was assassinatedfor preaching the truth.
Truth doesn't have to bejudgmental.
John wasn't judging people.
Paul wasn't judging people,they're just speaking the truth.
(14:45):
Truth speaking has beensomething that we have
completely abandoned, abolishedfrom our country.
And sitting here, will Americabe the ruins that Ephesus it is
today?
Will it be the ruins?
Will we be just a history bookand a city of ruins?
(15:06):
Or will we be a blessed nationthat repents and you have all
this noise and the Muslims aregonna come in and take over?
Look at someone's gonna takeover.
Someone's gonna come in and takeover.
It's gonna be the devil, it'sgonna be another religious
group, or it's gonna be or it'sgonna be Christianity.
(15:27):
It's up to us who takes Americafrom here.
If we're gonna be apologetic andhiding from our faith, if we're
gonna be afraid to go to church,or if we're going to church
three or you know, times a year.
Let's see, my pastor has asaying for this.
(15:47):
And I look for I asked PastorBernard last night, hey, what's
Pastor Randy saying?
He calls these parish the peoplewho come to church three times a
week, the CEOs, the CEOs,Christmas and Easter only.
Sorry, three times a year.
Not three times a week, threetimes a year.
(16:09):
We're not gonna save our nation.
We're not gonna you we can'toutlaw the growth of a religion
in our country.
We have the freedom of religion,not the freedom from religion.
We can't outlaw Islamic faith.
We can't outlaw pagan worship,we can't outlaw anything, but we
(16:31):
can out worship, we canoutrepent, we can be proactive
in bring our faith forwardboldly and start preaching and
start talking about the truthand start getting back to our
godly foundation and not hidingfrom it and being embarrassed
(16:52):
from it.
We're not gonna outlaw anything.
So if there's prayer chants andMuslims in the background, which
I learned a lot about, we'regonna talk next week.
They're not offensive, by theway.
If there's Sharia law happeningin certain cities, that's
because Christianity has beenhiding.
That's because our cities, ourinstitutions will have a spirit.
(17:19):
It's either going to be areligious, godly spirit of some
sort, or it's gonna be a demonicspirit.
It's up to us what that spiritis.
But if we apologize and we cowdown and we try to be
politically correct, it will notbe Christianity.
It won't.
That is a continuation of theAmerican culture.
(17:45):
I had great conversations aboutwhat the chants are in Muslim.
Jen and I heard them five timesa day.
We had conversations about them.
They're not freaky.
They are their culture, theircall to prayer to get to the
mosque.
They're godly.
We had a conversation about umthe radicals in the Quran and
(18:06):
the interpretation.
And I can't wait to dive intoall that with you.
It's been an incredible journeyhere in Turkey.
I love the Turkish people.
We met incredible people, have alot of respect for the Muslim
faith.
What I've learned is justcompletely mind-blowing.
But what I do know and I haveseen, what I do have the
discernment of, is America isfalling.
(18:28):
Our lack of going to worship,our lack of going to church, our
lack of biblical values, ourCEO, our Christmas and Easter
only participation in our faith,won't play anymore.
We're either going to get backinto the word as a nation, or
another word is going to takeover our nation.
(18:50):
It's up to us.
It's up to us what we want tofeed our children in whether
it's demonic or whether it'sheavenly.
And I just want to have thatconversation here from Ephesus
to be authentic, that I wasinspired on.
And it's just an incredibleopportunity to have a
(19:12):
conversation about God, aboutthe apostles, about the risks
they took for truth telling.
Not judgmental.
It's we all have free will.
They told the truth and theywere persecuted for that truth,
which sounds like what's beenhappening in America for the
(19:34):
last decade, but it's beenboiling a frog.
It's been going on longer than adecade.
And the fact that Charlie Kirkwas murdered over preaching the
truth, and then his legacytrying to be destroyed, that he
was a racist and a bigot, andall this part of my French
bullshit is further evidence ofwhat the apostles went through.
(19:56):
And I hadn't I had listened toCharlie Kirk from day one.
And I have.
And I never saw him as anapostle until now.
And he's been murdered overdoing what John did and what
Paul did.
He didn't go in hiding.
(20:17):
He did it out in a tent in apublic square.
It sounds a lot like theapostles.
What will we do?
Will we be a city in ruins, acountry in ruins?
Will we be a country of demonicspirits?
Will we be a Christian country,an Islamic country, a Jewish
(20:40):
country?
I don't know.
That's up to us.
And I'm not picking on anyreligion.
I actually happen to have a lotof respect for the Jewish
culture and for now if they'respending time in Turkey, and I'm
going to spend more time divinginto the Islam faith.
(21:00):
I did pick up a Quran about ayear ago, and I just discovered
from my conversation with thisgentleman, I'm reading someone's
interpretation of the Quran.
Okay, I got to fix that.
We talked about the Quran, himand I went through it together
for about 15 minutes, thesimilarities.
(21:20):
And I'm going to read you apassage from uh the Quran on the
next podcast that you're goingto think is our Bible.
Like we are very similar, andthere are extremists, just like
we had problems in our ownChristianity of molestation and
of just complete demonicinfiltration of our holiness, of
(21:44):
our holy homes, of our holyleadership.
And I'm going to get into allthat.
Have a great week.
Read the Bible, pick upRevelations, read Ephesians,
read chapter two of Revelation,and just kind of come on a
journey with me.
Like this is where I am.
(22:05):
I'm an Ephesus.
This is crazy.
Have a great week.
God bless.
Enjoy.
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