What Is The Doctrine of the Nicolaitans?

You know, the Greeks were an ancient people that we've talked about. The Greeks had a tremendous civilization back in the day, back before the time of Christ and during the time of Christ. The Greek civilization was considered one of the more advanced civilizations of all time. During that time, there were advancements made in mathematics, science, and medicine that are even with us today. The Greeks just were a group of people and a society of people that were always forward-thinking. Some of the great philosophers of all time, that history would call, came during that time. They were always seeking, always looking for new ideas, always inspecting things, and always trying to advance. They had that built into their society, even for the young people. They had a system that we've talked about called Pihadea, where it was designed to bring the children, at that time, the males, to be the best in body, mind, and soul they could be. So they could become productive members of that society. It was a rigorous training program that they all went through, because the Greeks were always looking for something new. They were always looking to attain a higher level. They were always looking to be better than what they were. And that was a good thing to do. Physically speaking, they were a tremendous society that we still have the effects of them today. That's just how strong they were and how dedicated to learning and the discipline that they had.

At the same time, the Greeks were physically very good. They had a really silly system of gods. As they looked for eternity and meaning in life, they had a silly system of gods that we probably have studied back in our high school days, or elementary school days, in mythology.

They concocted these tremendous stories that went along with their gods. Zeus did this, and this is how Hermes came about, and this is Hercules, and all these gods. You can see the imagination in them, but it really was just a silly system of gods when you look at it. They had all this wisdom on one side, always seeking for something better and always seeking for something higher. But on the level of spiritual, of course, they were a blind and dark people.

There was a pagan society that was steeped in its pagan culture. I mean, sexual immorality was just part of life in Greece. They had festivals that just championed it. Whatever your lust of the flesh or lust of the eyes was, you could find it, and it would be legal in a pagan society. They had pagan festivals, some of which we would even be familiar with today, I suppose, when we look at the origins of some of the pagan-originated holidays that we keep in this country.

But on those holidays, they would just have wild festivals, and there would be things like, somewhere along the line, they even had something to do with meat, and the meat that was sacrificed to idols on those days. And so, they had all this stuff going on, right? So, in the Greek society, you had a system of gods, not at all based on the true gods, silly gods when we look at it, but it made provision for the lust of the flesh.

It made provision for the lust of the eyes, and boy, the Greeks, they could flap their feathers, and they had the pride of life. They were the preeminent society, even when Rome conquered Greece. They wanted to keep some of the Greek culture. It was that well-known at that time. And so, in that aura, in that environment, God began his New Testament Church. He began to reach out to people that had this background, that were filled with these ideas, that had lived in a society that was so contrary to anything that was written in the Bible. And as he opened the minds of some in these Gentile nations, and primarily the Greeks, because the New Testament churches, they were all there in the Greek area. Even the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, which is considered the most expressive language of all time.

They were there, and people began to come into the church as they began to see. And the Greeks, remember, they were always curious about new ideas and new things. And so, some of them would hear about this man, Jesus Christ. And they would hear people like Paul come to them and talk and give tremendous sermons. And so, their curiosity would be piqued, and some of them, God called, and was like, that's the truth. That's the truth. And then, they had to come out of a society that was just so, so, so different than what the Bible preached. And so, back in that time, they would have had the Old Testament. They would have the Old Testament that you and I read. They would have come and looked at the Old Testament. They would have looked at the Ten Commandments. They would have known, this is what you're teaching is. This is what you're going to do. This is the way of life, you know, that you will follow if you follow Jesus Christ. And they would look at the Scriptures, and we find groups of people like the Bereans and others that Paul would encounter at Corinth and Galatia and Thessalonica and the cities that he went to. That grasped it, and they would look at the Scriptures and know, this is God. This is His truth. And they had to come out of that world, a world far, far, far more depraved than what you and I came out of. The world we came out of is pretty depraved, but nothing like theirs. And grasped this new religion that had all sorts of limits on their behavior that they didn't have as citizens of the Greek society.

And so, early on, God began calling Greeks. And they would mix with the Jews, and we've talked about some of the problems in the early churches there where the Jews and Greeks would meet, and you had the issue of, well, we're better people than you. But Paul had to instruct them, as he did in Romans 1 and 2 and 3, you're both sinners, right? You're both sinners, and so we have come into it, and now we're a new group of people, a new belief, a new, you know, with our eyes on salvation in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. But Paul would write to the people, and there were a lot of corrective messages in the epistles that he would send. But even early on, he began to see that there was going to be a problem. Turn with me over to Acts. Acts 20.

Excuse me.

In Acts 20, Paul, you know, has spent some time in Ephesus, and he loves, you know, he loves that church, you can see, and he wanted to spend some time with them, and he's leaving them here as we go through chapter 20. And he sees and he knows some things that's going to happen to that church. And of course, he doesn't want it to happen. He wants them all, just like all of us, want all of each other to remain true to God, to remain true and grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, not to slip back, not to fall away. But Paul knows that's not going to be the way it is for the church. And here in Acts 20, you know, down in verse 28, as he's got the elders gathered there, you know, verse 27, he goes, listen, I haven't shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. This is the way of life that you need to live, you know, and they would see the same verses that you and I see. Don't add to it. Don't take away with it. Don't take away from it. Diligently obey. Carefully obey. Don't stray from it. Therefore, he says in verse 28, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Satan is always going to attack the church of God. And so there will be people come in and they're going to bring destructive heresies that would lead people away. But he also says in verse 30, also from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. We get to the pride of life. I just need to have a follower. I need people. I need to share my ideas. And sometimes in the Greek way of thinking, I have got this new idea. I've got this new thing. I've got to share it with everyone, with the real idea of I want to follow. I want people to agree with me and follow me. Therefore, watch, he says, and remember that for three years I didn't cease to warn everyone day and night with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. So as he looks at this church, and you know he's sorrowful because he knows what's going to happen, and he doesn't want it to happen, but it is the way of the Church of God, and it is the way that we have to all be cognizant of and watch ourselves, that we never would become some of these people from among the flock that would lead others astray, as we've talked about by our example, by our words, by some new teaching that we have come across on the internet or anything else like that. And Paul says, and he commends the elders then, you know, just, I've given you the keys to the kingdom. They're in the Bible. Don't add to it. Don't take away from it. Live by every word of it, and keep that as the thing that you are teaching and in front of you.

Well, Paul, you know, Paul said those words and wrote those words in Acts 20, and as you go through his epistles, you can see that exactly what he predicted happened. All of a sudden, I don't know about all of a sudden, but, you know, as you read through his Gospels or his epistles, you see that the churches are departing, and he says words to them that are interesting because he has to correct them from afar, and like, remember I told you this, but what's going on here?

Why don't you know this? Why are you departing from that? So if we go through, you know, some of the epistles of Paul, and we see the correction that he has is what he was talking about, what's happening in the churches. Little ideas here, little things there, little things that are different as people are led by this spirit or this idea or someone else, and they depart a little bit from the Gospel of God. You know, the Gospel that has been given to them. You know, in Corinthians, you know, we will remember that in that church, there was a sin that was being tolerated in the congregation. And Paul says it's a sin that wouldn't even be tolerated among the Gentiles, but you guys are like callous to it.

You know, you come from a background, he might be saying, that you were kind of used to these things, but you can't tolerate it in that church. That's not your life anymore. You have to, this person can't go on living this way. He can't go on doing these things. You need to put him out so that he may come to his senses and have God, you know, wake him up, that he comes back and he doesn't lose his eternal life.

And you're part of the problem because you're tolerating that. You got used to it. And you know, the same thing could happen to us today. We live in a society that's so far departed from the moral principles of God that we might look at things and think, oh, you know, we just got used to it.

You know, it's not any big thing anymore for us to know that people in the world live together before marriage, and we could find ourselves thinking, eh, you know what? It's there. We can't become calloused to the Word of God and adopt a society and have our mind that way. We have to be on guard on it, just like that Corinthian church had to be woken up and told, you know, pay attention to this. There's a chapter in Corinthians all about eating meat sacrificed to idols.

It was an issue there. The teaching, I think, was clear, but Paul had to remind him, and then as they had issues come up, he had to say, listen, don't let this divide you. Don't let this separate you. Work together and understand the mission of the church.

Yours still need to be very much, you know, unified and understanding how to deal with these things as they come up. Let's go through the book of Galatians. I just want to read through some verses in Galatians that so show what is going on as Paul faces exactly what he predicted back there in Acts 20. If we begin in Galatians 1 and in verse 6, you know, at the beginning of his epistle to the church at Galatia, he says, I marvel.

I marvel that you're turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel. I marvel. Come on. You were called to this. You understood it. You embraced it. You know the truth. What's happening that all of a sudden you're turning away from it? What's going on in the church there? How did this happen so quickly? In Galatians 3, verse 1, he says, Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you shouldn't obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as perusified? Who's working here?

What's being said in this church that you, foolish Galatians, have been bewitched into thinking that this, that you know is the right way, may not be the right way? What's going on here? What's happening? Who isn't among you that is having these things happen? What's going on in your church? Galatians 4, verse 8, he says, But then, indeed, when you don't know God, you serve those which by nature are not gods.

He's talking about their time in the past when they were Greeks and they were serving their little idols with all the little silly stories that went along with them. You serve those which by nature are not gods, but now, after you've known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements? To which you desire again to be in bondage? How is it?

You know the truth. Your eyes have been opened. What's happened to you over the months? And since I've been there that now you're looking back and saying, you know what? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I see what you're doing. You're drifting back in. You're allowing some of these things to come into your belief system. Again, you're looking back and you're kind of longing for the way it used to be and want to be part of that world as well.

And in verse 11, he says, I'm afraid for you. I'm afraid for you. Lest I've labored for you in vain. I'm afraid, Galatians. Look what you're doing. You know, last week we talked about Balaam. I think one of the things that I remember out of the story of Balaam was when the angel told Balaam, you're on a perverse road. You're on the road to ruin.

You know what Paul is saying? I'm afraid for you. You're on the road to ruin. You better get your ship set in the right direction. You better examine. You better go back to what you knew and get rid of all this other stuff that you've allowed to come in to take you away from the truth that you're in or that you were called to. Galatians 5, verse 7. You ran well, he says. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? What happened? Who are you listening to? You're supposed to be listening to God. You're supposed to be listening to the Word of God. You're supposed to be adhering to that. This persuasion doesn't come from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. You know, a little sin, a little sin can enter a congregation and by example are talking about it or justifying it, all of a sudden you can have a whole sort of problems and a whole lot of people that are leavened with incorrect things, incorrect ideas, incorrect ideas. Incorrect conclusions that are apart from what the Bible says. Verse 10, he says, I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind, but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment whoever he is. I know this heresy or these departures from the truth have come from someone there who's troubling you, Galatians.

And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. Okay, I could wish, he says, that those who trouble you would cut themselves off. I wish they would just leave. If they don't want to believe what the church has to say, if they don't want to believe the Bible, if they want to go back to the world, just leave. Leave the rest of the people alone so you can grow the way God has called you to. But for you, brethren, for you, brethren, have been called to liberally, liberty. But don't use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. But through love serve one another. So we see departures among the people there. We see little things creeping in. People wanting to go back to some of the things that they had before, maybe justifying themselves, that wasn't so bad.

We have others who hear the word of liberty and it's like, wow, does that mean we could go back to do some of the things we did before? Is Paul giving us the license to do that? And maybe we can jump to conclusions and say, yeah, that's okay. That's exactly what we should do. So we see these things, these elements in the church, in the Colossians, you know, the church at Colossae.

We see some of the things, Colossians 2.

Colossians 2 and verse 8.

He says to this church, beware, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit.

Through their ideas, through these great scholars, these minds that just continually search and they keep in their own minds going over things and over things and over things and rely on their own understanding and their own mind rather than the clear word of God.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

Oh, they're kind of bringing in some of these things and it's kind of like taking us back into that.

Verse 9.

This is the complete word of God.

We need nothing more to live by than the complete word of God.

We need to learn every word. We need to live every word.

We need to keep out of our minds and we need to learn to reject any idea that isn't of God and to be able to test the spirits, test the ideas, and go back and prove it from the word of God.

Hold fast to what is being taught and let go and reject the things that are not of God. Over in 2 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, the church of Thessalonica, you know, I won't read through. You can read through 2 Thessalonians 2, the first several verses there.

He's talking about the coming of the Lord, Jesus Christ. This is a message for us.

And he talks about the falling away. In verse 7, he says, he goes, For the mystery of lawlessness, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains will do so until he was taken out of the way.

It's already at work, this mystery. How does this happen? Some will embrace mysteries. Ah, look at this. This is what it is. This is what's going on.

You know, as you read through the Gospels or the Epistles, you see Paul then talking to Timothy and telling him, you know what? You preach the Word. You preach sound doctrine. You preach it from the Bible.

You don't...you keep people focused on that.

And back in Ephesians, go back a couple books in Ephesians, you know, he gives to this church at Ephesus, a church that he loved, the church that he gave the comments to, that he did that we read back in Acts 20.

In verse...from verses 11 down to verse 19, he talks about the order of the church. This is what God's church will be like. This is how it's established.

And whatever. In verse 12, he says, the reason for the church, the reason for the body to be together, to be led, as God said, is for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, or the work of service, for the edifying of the body of Christ, building it up.

You know, that's what should be preached in there for the purpose of getting the saints ready, of building them up for the work of service. Service now and service for eternity, right?

For the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man. Perfect man!

There's only one way to perfection and blamelessness. That's through the Word of God. That's through the Holy Spirit of God and using it and allowing it to lead you and guide you as you submit ourselves to it.

There's only one way to perfection. There's only one way to the kingdom of God.

Till we all come to the unity to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature and fullness of Christ, who lived by every word.

That's what we have in the Word of God today.

He says in verse 14, kind of telling of what's going on in that church there among some, that we should no longer be children.

We need to grow. We need to become more mature, just like we don't expect our children to stay two years old forever, five years old forever, twelve years old forever.

There has to be growth. That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.

Because those times will come. There will be tricking and cunning and exciting little things that someone might tell you that you don't see in the Bible, Oh, that's a good speculation. Oh, I might receive that on the Internet. Oh, I've got to... That must be it.

There must be some knowledge out there that's apart from the Bible that I need to have.

And over the years we've heard this, but we have people that are tossed to and fro.

Sometimes they're among us for a year, two years, five years, and all of a sudden they're carried away by another wind of doctrine.

And back then it happens today. Tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.

So Paul kind of tells us in his epistles, and Peter does too, and we'll get to him in a little bit, what was going on in this New Testament church.

It's different than what was going on in the congregation of Israel. The congregation of Israel, they were all under God for 40 years in the wilderness. They knew who God was. They all came out of Egypt. They came out of the same systems.

Now we have a New Testament church that's open to everyone. We have Greeks, we have pagans, we have Jews that come with their own set of issues being bound together.

And we see the pressures of what's going on, and we have these things happening in the New Testament church that's taking people away.

Taking people away. And so we come to Revelation, and we have Jesus Christ walking among the seven churches that we read about in Revelation 2 and 3.

And as He begins to give the seven messages to those seven churches, seven messages that pertain as much to us today as they did to every church with the various seven names they have today.

And we all need to be aware of and think, oh, that was them and not us. No, it's us. Everything written in here we need to do.

We come to the very first church, the very first church that's mentioned, the Church of Ephesus, the one we talked about that Paul was talking to back in Acts 20.

And down as we go through, we see that this church, we talked about this previously, lost its first love.

And God says, you know, get it back. Stir it up. And we've talked about that.

But down in verse 6, He says, but this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

And here's a word in the very last book of the Bible that appears for the first time, Nicolaitans. And God says, you know what? Ephesus, early church, early on, you hate their deeds.

You see what they're doing. You see that this is a part from God that this isn't what God said to do.

And as we read through Paul's epistles, we can kind of see what's going on in those churches.

There's things that are being said. There's things being done. People going off in different directions. Some after the lust of the flesh, some after the lust of the eyes, some after the pride of life. Whatever was the thing that was going to, you know, that they had to overcome because the Greeks had it all. The Greeks had it all as we have it all. But He says, you hate those deeds of the Nicolaitans.

Good for you, Ephesus. You've been able to judge them and say, I'm not following that.

And God says, I hate them. We come, I hate those deeds as well. We go down to the church at Pergamos. In verse 14, He says, but I have a few things against you, church, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things, sacrifice the idols, and to commit sexual immorality. We talked about that last week. You know, we talked about it at the Bible study. You know, when we see sacrifice the idols and sexual immorality, the spiritual meanings of those things that we need to be aware of. And in verse 15, He says, Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

And nowhere does God ever define what the doctrine of the Nicolaitans is.

Nowhere does He say and have John inspire him to say, and these are the deeds of the Nicolaitans I hate.

This is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans I hate. He simply makes two comments. First time and the only two times Nicolaitan shows in the Bible, both times God says, I hate that.

And so we, as God's people, should be learning what are the deeds of the Nicolaitans. You know, we can't just do a list and say, well, this is it, one, two, three, four, five. But we can kind of learn what the deeds of the Nicolaitans are. It's interesting, as you see in the Church in Ephesus, there were deeds, there were things that people were doing.

But here, by the time you get to Pergamos, they've become doctrines.

Somehow the deeds of the Nicolaitans have become a doctrine of the Nicolaitans. We have those in the Church who have this doctrine, this belief that God says, I hate that belief.

It's not the belief you find in the Bible. It's the belief that has been perverted, has been damaged, as you've been on this road to ruin, you've allowed these things to creep into your congregations. You've had these things creep into your belief system. You've had this thing creep into your Church. And so we do need to kind of explore this and find out what are the deeds of Nicolaitans. As God hates something, I sure want to know what He hates, so I can kind of be on the lookout for it in my life.

And you know what? We can kind of see what the deeds and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans are right from the Bible. We need some hints, and sometimes when we see things in the Bible, we have to dig and we have to research, and we have to use the Bible as our backup, and we have to put all of the things together. But we can find out and learn what those deeds and what the doctrine of the Nicolaitans are so that you and I can make an examination of ourselves, an examination of our church, our local church here, and see if any of those things crept in, because if God hates them, we have to hate them. We have to identify them, and we have to put them out. So, you know, today we live in an age where we have commentaries, we have all sorts of history books and everything like that. So if you go and you have a wonderful time where we can type in the word Nicolaitans, and you can kind of find everything under the sun about the Nicolaitans.

Here's one thing from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, an age-old document. And here's what they say about Nicolaitans. They say, church fathers, such as Arrhenius, Hippolytus, Tertullian— and these are well-known historians of the church who we look at. You know, Eusebius is named in another one of these sources here. Church fathers, such as Arrhenius, Hippolytus, Tertullian, state that the founder of the sect called Nicolaitans is the Nicholas of Acts 6, verse 5.

Okay, well, there's exactly one time this man, Nicholas, is mentioned in the Bible. Only two times Nicolaitans are mentioned in the Bible. If you go back to Acts 6, 5, which we will in a minute, you know, there's only one time this man, Nicholas, is mentioned in the Bible. And they say these ancient church historians say, you know, this came from this man, Nicholas. But they also wanted to say it may be that the opinions of this sect, which it became, were an antinomian exaggeration of the preaching of Nicholas. Well, what they're saying is, and I'll define antinomian here in a minute because we're going to hear some words you probably heard just to refresh your minds what they mean.

So, Nicholas, and we'll see, we'll get to him in a minute, he might have started saying some things. You know, I've got this idea. And is it, you know, I mean, he might have, you know, what about this? Doesn't this make sense? Isn't this the way it could be? Wouldn't it be okay to do this? Or don't you think that we need to do whatever? And I'll give you a story about him in a little bit when we get into him. And they say the sect grew into an exaggeration of what he said.

So a little bit, a little bit of something that may have started with him grew into all these things that Paul is talking about, all these things that Peter will be talking about, too, when we see. And the names and the way he describes the people that are operating in the church at that time.

Little things that can grow into big things that God hates. So, antinomian. It basically means against the law. An antinomian is against the law of God. Exactly what our human nature would be. You know, we have a whole system of so-called Christianity in the world today that says the law is done away with. We don't want the law. We've devised. We've kind of on our minds looked at the Bible and said, oh, the law is done away with. We've looked at this scripture and used it to our own imagination and our own desires. And we say the law is done away with. So we have, you know, we have this antinomian, the sect was antinomian.

Another source says this. It says, The explanation that takes the Nicolaitans to be composed of followers of Nicholas has strong support in the early church. Added to Arrhenius are the testimonies of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Dorotheus of Tyre, Jerome, Augustine, Eusebius, and others. So it's well documented among the early church historians, Nicolaitans tied to Nicholas.

They all say this was a sect of licentious antinomian Gnostics who lapsed into their antinomian license because of an overstrained asceticism. Now there's a lot of words we don't use in everyday language, right? All in one sentence. Okay, we defined antinomianism. Let's talk about Gnosticism. Gnosticism, boy, it is a tough one to describe. And I tried to put it in my own words, and I thought, you know what? So I went online and thought someone has done this because it's just too hard to describe, and there's a lot involved in it.

This is what I thought LearnReligions.com had a pretty good definition of it. So let me define what Gnosticism is. Gnosticism was an early Christian religious movement claiming that salvation could be gained through a special form of secret knowledge. Hmm, I'll find this out. You can see the Greek thought there, right? I will keep searching and searching.

There's some secret thing that will get me to where I need to be, and that's where salvation lies. Early Christian Church Fathers such as Origen, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and Eusebius of Caesarea condemned the Gnostic teachers and beliefs as heretical. Second part. Gnostics believe that the world was divided into the physical and spiritual realms. The created material world is evil, they concluded, and therefore in opposition to the world of the spirit and only the spirit is good. Well, we would agree with that. Is God's spirit in us that is the good things? We know that our flesh is weak. We are told that no good thing dwells in us and that our minds are continually against God.

Adherence of Gnosticism often constructed an evil, lesser God and beings of the Old Testament to explain the creation of the world and themselves. This was an inferior God at creation. He made some mistakes. He made some mistakes. And so now Jesus Christ is coming to the world. That's who we look to. And it's only His spirit in us. We can discount the rest of it because it was a fallible God who created the universe and who created mankind and built these things into us.

Kind of see the danger in that? And so you can kind of see where, as people would spin these things in their mind and say, oh, they might read the writings of the Bible, they might read the readings of Paul and say, yeah, the flesh is weak, the flesh is evil. We have to overcome the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. What kind of God would have created us that way? He must have made a mistake back then. It's all His fault. And therefore, we can eventually take that and exaggerate it to, we can do everything we want with the flesh because Jesus Christ came and He did it all for us.

We are no longer responsible for what we do. Jesus Christ paid the price for all sins. Is Gnosticism alive and well in the world today? Gnosticism is alive and well in the world today, just as it was in the early Christian church when it became there. And it was people within the church who would spin these ideas, take their own ideas, and in the Greek way of doing things, perhaps, ah, look at this. I thought, if this is true, then this must be true. And someone listens and says, you know what? That makes sense. That makes sense. I understand that. And all of a sudden you have people turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, as Paul says.

Now, that's the way people do it. Now, asceticism. This is from the Encyclopedia Britannica, asceticism. You know, they talk about asceticism in this church. An ascetic is a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons. A person who leads an austerially simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or denies himself or herself any material satisfaction. You know what? I can't take any pleasure in food. I can't take any pleasure in drink. I can't take any pleasure in festivals. You know, it's reported that Nicholas said, even though he was married, I can't even take any pleasure in sex anymore. I simply will write that off of my life, even though I'm married. And even though that's contrary to the law of God, I deny myself everything. And so you look in collage and you see that people are judging people. What? You're Christian and you're like celebrating these holy days? You're like enjoying those holy days? No, you should be austere. There's nothing. There's nothing if we follow God that is enjoyable. Because if it's of the flesh, absolutely everything needs to be denied. It didn't start out that way. Nothing starts out that way, but it just grows over time, over time, over time. And you can kind of see these definitions from the early church leaders that are bleeding all over Paul's messages to the churches.

Look what you've done. Look what's reported among you. Who's been saying these things to you? Where did you get the idea that you could take the license of the things that you have been clearly preached as clearly in the Word of God and then spin it off into this other thing that doesn't look like the Word of God anymore? It's filled with your own ideas. It's filled with your own desires. It's marked all over by flustered of the flesh, lustered of the eyes, pride of life, whatever it is. And some were that, and others, you know what? Look how wise I am. Look at what I figured out from the words of Paul and the words of Bible to get there. Well, let's go back and let's look at this man, Nicholas, since he figures prominently and mentioned only one time in the Bible. But in that one time in the Bible, we learn a lot about this man, Nicholas.

That the early church fathers, say, as the founder, or the one who began this sect that became known as the Nicolaitans, that God condemns in all the churches because it's extant in all of them. Acts 6 and verse 5, here we have the apostles saying, well, we need some people to help us with some service. So they're going to appoint the deacons here, right? So the ministers, the apostles, have more time to study the Word of God and do the things, the ecclesiastical things. And so they bring the people together. They have some deacons that are appointed. And in verse 5 we see this. It says, you know, the saying, please, the whole multitude. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. And we've got a description of Stephen there. Only two people that we have, any description of them at all. Stephen, we know Stephen from Acts 7, he goes out and he's martyred. He basically stands up for God and witnesses for them, and he's martyred. So we have Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Procurus, Nicanor, Tymann, Parmenas. And lastly, we have Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. So we have only descriptions of two of the men, Stephen, we see. But Nicholas is, as noted, he's a proselyte from Antioch. So if we just look at those four words, a proselyte from Antioch, we can figure out something about Nicholas. Well, first, he's going to be ordained a deacon. So he's going to find himself in a position in the church where he can have some influence. And people are going to look to him and say, oh, he's a deacon. Yeah, he's a good guy. And obviously what he's been doing has been very well because the congregation put him forth. And so when he talks and says some things, people are going to look at him and say, okay, well, we can pay attention to what Nicholas said. I mean, look at Stephen. He certainly, what he did was very commendable, giving his life. So Nicholas would do that. Well, we find out that he's from Antioch. Well, Antioch was Greece. So we have Nicholas here who comes from Greece. And so he's grown up in the Greek culture. He knows all those things. He knows that pagan system very well. He's lived it. He's lived it. He's reveled in it. He was part of all those pagan festivals and everything that was planted in his mind during those formative years of his life. He may be a free thinker. He may be one who prides himself on what he knows and what he does. So he comes from that background a little bit. That's a very difficult thing to give up. And it says he's a proselyte. He's a proselyte from Antioch. What's a proselyte? What is a proselyte?

Well, if you look in there and it says proselyte, it could be called as a stranger or a newer person to there. So here's just by the fact that he's a Greek. He's kind of new to the church because this is early on, right?

This is Acts 6. This is in Acts 20 or Acts 28. This is Acts 6. He's early on in the Christian church here. And he's embraced everything that he's heard because he's a proselyte from Antioch. So he's a convert from paganism to Christianity by way of Judaism. Here's what it says about proselyte and what it means. If you look in the commentaries, and if you look at the four other times the word proselyte is used in the New Testament, every single time it was a convert to Judaism. Someone that went to not Christianity but to Judaism.

Now it's interesting, as you again, you search through some of these things that are online and look at some of the books that are dated way back whenever that are online now. And there's an interesting thing that where, of all people, Annas and Caiaphas, you remember them, right?

The high priests who were there as Jesus Christ was put to death, they actually define in a book what a proselyte is. It's going to read this from what I had. It says that the historical meaning of the Greek word proselyte can be found in Chapter 2 of the Apocryphal Gospel Acts of Pilate, roughly dated from 150 Christian eras.

Pilate, calling Annas and Caiaphas, says, what are proselytes? Now here's Pilate, right? He's an interesting guy because his wife is having these visions, you remember, of Jesus Christ and she's being told, don't have anything to do with the death of this man. And it turns out she's very interested in the Jewish religion and whatever. And Pilate looks at Jesus Christ. He knows what his wife is saying.

He understands because she's had more conversations with him than just don't be part of the death of this man. And when Jesus Christ comes before him, he says, I don't see the reason for him to be put to death.

And Christ mentions truth in Pilate. You can tell he's searching, well, what is truth? What is truth? Well, you and I know what the answer to truth is, right? Pilate didn't know. What is truth? You know, he's got all these things. He's got Jews in his kingdom. He's got Roman gods. He's got Greek gods. He's got everything all over the place. And they all have different stories.

What is truth? You and I have found truth. God has brought us to truth, and we should never let go of it. Well, you know, in this little apocryphal gospel acts of Pilate, and it's interesting when you read about Gnostic works, and sometimes people bring up these books.

You know, why wasn't this gospel, do you think, brought up, put in the New Testament? Well, when you look at the ancient works, some of those, they're all, many of them are called Gnostic gospels. They have a little bit of truth in them. They have little things you can pick up here and there, but they don't fit the Bible. And so, you know, God's not going to be fooled by man. The Bible is exactly what God wants it to be. It's truth. And there's these other things, these other counterfeit books written by other people to try to lead people astray.

They're left out of the Bible for a reason. But we can find some historical facts. Here in this book, here in this book, Pilate says, what are proselytes? Caiaphas answers. They are by birth children of the Greeks and have now become Jews. They've now become Jews. An interesting group of people who could leave away all the license and the vociviousness of a Greek society and become Jews.

Not Christians, but Jews. So Nicholas moved from a pagan life in Antioch to becoming a Jew and embraced that. Now look at the character, if we want to call it that, that he had. I saw these ideas. I kind of explored what the Jews had to say. You know what? It's fascinating. Look at what they believe. Look at this Bible. It makes sense to me. And obviously, God called him, but he was willing to move from one religion to another one. And during that transformation from one religion to another, he had to learn a lot of self-control. Because what he was used to and what they did in Greek was totally different than what the Jews did.

I mean, it was like night and day. And he did it very well. He embraced it. He's here being appointed as a deacon.

But he's not a Jew in Acts 6. He was a pagan. He became a Jew. And now he's a Christian. So he's moved from one church, one belief system, to another belief system, and now to another belief system. And he's embraced it. He heard the message about Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Savior. He's the Messiah. He's the one the world has been waiting for. And he's embraced it, and he believes it. But there's a pattern with Nicholas that's interesting. I've moved from this to this to this. The question could be, is that where it stopped? Is that where it stopped? He was obviously a free thinker. He was the one who would take and embrace new ideas.

And he's got that pattern of always, always looking and always going on with that, which is a good thing. Which is a good thing. You know, mankind enjoys the society that we live in today because there have been people who, what about this? What about this? Can this be done? And we can be thankful there's men like that and that we have a society and the opportunities and the blessings that we have in the world today. But on a spiritual level, on a spiritual level, people should keep searching, but there comes a time when you know you found the truth. You know you found the truth and the search is over. Jesus Christ talks about it. A man has been searching all over the world for the Pearl of Great Price. Ah, I found the Pearl of Great Price. I will sell everything I have. This is where it stops. This is truth.

I'm not going to continue looking for it. I'm not going to continue peeking around and looking for some secret knowledge or something that can set me apart or whatever it is, whatever might be the thing that is in our minds, in our hearts, that we have to overcome. This is the truth. I can prove everything from the Bible. I am going to live by every word of the Bible. And I'm going to believe the word of the Bible and that God hasn't left something out that's going to trick us.

Or there's some secret knowledge or something that God is, oh, he's being too austere. We can do this and we can do that and whatever. That's what God says we take to heart. So we can ask, did Nicholas do some of these things? I gave you the story of what he said, and that's documented in a few of these historical things. He got to the point where it's like, you know what? I'm not even going to do that because it's wrong. I need to deny my flesh everything. What does it tell you about? What does it tell us about Nicholas? He's already taken the word of God and he's taken it to a place that the Bible doesn't say take it to. That I'm going to deny myself this always. He took it from a start that may be a thought that went in his mind or someone that told him something. And then he practiced it and it became known because there's another part of the story that's rather vile of him and his wife.

And then other people might take that and say, oh yeah, you know what? But you know what? Maybe what you're saying, Nicholas, gives us license to do this. Actually, Jesus Christ did it all for us. Whatever we do with our flesh, we're not accountable for. We're not accountable for because there was an inferior God who created the universe. Let's turn to 2 Timothy here. 2 Timothy 3. You know, again, as Paul is talking to Timothy and training him to be a minister, he'll talk about the Word of God and living by every word of it and preach sound doctrine.

And he warns him against babblings and feudal arguments and things that are going to come up from the people that he's at. Stick to the Bible right here. 2 Timothy 3. For the end times, we have this list of things that are here for us. I'm going to read through them because they defined the society we live in today. Know this, in the last days, perilous times will come. Men will be lovers of themselves.

They'll be lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers. I'm going to be doing things against the Word of God. Disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control. Those take self-control, right? To be a Christian. Those take self-control. It's one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. They're brutal. They're despisers of good. Traitors headstrong, haughty. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. What do I want to do? Because you know I'm going to put what I want to do ahead of what God may say. And, hey, you know, over time I'll even figure out a way to justify that in my mind.

Having a form of godliness. We say the right things. Let's use the word Jesus Christ. We'll claim He's our Savior. We're in a form of godliness but denying its power. And Paul says, from such people, turn away. Don't let that among you. For of this sort, he goes on to say, are those who creep? Notice that word creep. They're not just up there in front. They creep into us. Someone creeps into our household at night.

Man, that's not usually a good thing. For of this sort are those who creep in the household and make captives of gullible women, loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Isn't that interesting? Always learning. I never say learning, but are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. They've stumbled across the truth. It's been there, but they didn't even recognize it because they're always looking for something else. They're always moving from here to there and there's got to be something more. They're listening to everything and they're not founded and tied to the rock that is our God. Not tied to the absolute truth of the Bible.

One of the commentaries says this about these people who are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. It says, This refers to those who are always seeking the newest, latest, greatest spiritual teaching. In modern terms, this is sometimes referred to as a person who is so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. At some point, a person needs to recognize truth and accept it rather than constantly bouncing from one fad to the next.

Isn't that interesting? And you know, as I think back over my life in the church, I've known people that are like that. They bounce from one thing to another. What's the latest, greatest truth? What's the thing I've learned on the Internet? Oh, that must be it. Oh, where's that secret knowledge that takes me out of this crowd and puts me in this crowd that has an absolute, automatic entrance into the kingdom of God? You can find all those things out there.

Are they of God? No. Are they the Bible? No. But some people do that, and then they want to kind of have other people follow them. Look what I've learned. Let me fluff my feathers. Look at this pride of life. Look what I know that you don't know and that the Bible doesn't know. God must be keeping something from us.

So you get a picture as you read through the New Testament and look at it from that way of, excuse me, what's going on. And Peter talks about it as well. Let's go back and just look at a few of the verses we've looked at a few times here in the past, but I keep coming back to them.

Second Peter. Second Peter 2. And I'm not going to read a lot. I'm going to highlight some things that should remind you of the things that we've talked about today as Paul talks about them.

And as we look at the Greek way of thought, as we look at Nicholas and what he came from and what he might do and some of the ancient teachings that are out there about him, the stories about him. And second Peter 2, you know, verse 1. Peter. Peter's talking about this thing that's going on in the church just like Paul is. There were false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you. In your midst there will be people who will try to lead you astray, is what he's saying, who will secretly, not up front, they're not going to preach it from the pulpit, secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who brought them, who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. Even denying the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, they don't come out and say, you know, I don't believe Jesus Christ is the Savior. They don't say that. But how do we deny Jesus Christ? We deny Jesus Christ when we don't do what he says, right? Jesus Christ said, hey, you know, to those who come and say, Lord, Lord, didn't we say, do these things in your name? He goes, I didn't know you. I don't even know you. Get away from me, you who practice lawlessness. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Do the things in the Bible. Live your life, life the way I lived my life. Don't add to, don't take away, understand it, live it, apply it into your lives. But these people bring in destructive heresies, even denying Christ. You don't have to do that. You can do this as well. You know what? You can look back to Antioch. You can look back to Athens. You can look back to your life before. You can look to your families. You can do these things, and it's okay.

Verse 2, and many, many will follow the destructive ways. Many, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. You don't have to do it the way you were taught from the beginning. You don't have to do it the way the Bible says. You can make little allowances. God's okay with that, is what they're taught.

And why do they follow? Because it appeals to self. It appeals to self. Man, I really, that would be great. If I can do that, and God's okay with it, that's okay. And then they see an example, and they follow right along with it.

Verse 10. Verse 10, it says, you know, these people, they walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness. They're presumptuous. We talked to presumptuous last week. They're self-willed.

They're not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries. It doesn't mean they're calling them bad names. You don't have to listen to that. He's a little old-fashioned. The Bible's a little old-fashioned. That's a book for the long time. That's not how we have to live today.

Whatever, whatever appeals to our senses and what we want. Verse 13. They will receive the wages of unrighteousness as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. Carouse in the daytime.

Man, I'm kind of enjoying this. I kind of like have this license. I'll carouse in the daytime. They're spots. They're blemishes. Carousing in their own deceptions when they feast with you.

They got these ideas. They're kind of showing you by example what they think, but here they are among us. They are carousing in their own deceptions.

Here, but not really paying attention, not really on the path to salvation. Although they've deceived themselves that there's more than one way to salvation.

Because there is only one way to salvation, and that is through Jesus Christ, and that is through living by the Word of God and letting God perfect us in the way that He defines perfection, which is the example of Jesus Christ.

They have eyes full of adultery. What does adultery mean? Does it really mean that all they're thinking about is, hey, look how great that woman looks over there and whatever? No. We talked about spiritual adultery. Look at this idea. Look at that idea. Yeah, that's cool. Look at that. I can take that speculation and I can add that into the book of Revelation. That makes sense. That must be what's going to happen. I'm running with that.

Great to speculate. Better yet, to always remember, it's your speculation or someone else's speculation and stick to the Word of God when we're in prophecy.

Having eyes full of adultery, they're always looking. They're always looking. They're always searching for something else.

And they cannot cease from sin enticing unstable souls. Unstable souls. They aren't settled in the church of God. They aren't settled with the doctrine that they have been called to. They're not settled in the truth of God. They're unstable. They're still moving.

They're still moving from here to there to wherever it is. They haven't embraced the words of, Cling to the truth, hold onto it. When you find it, sell everything else. Be aware when you found the truth, never ever ever let it go.

Verse 17. These are wells without water. They're dry wells. They may look good. They may look promising. There's nothing. There's no reward in listening to what they say.

They're clouds carried by a tempest. Kind of like the carried away by every wind of doctrine. They move from here to there. They're clouds that are just carried away by a tempest. Here is the newest thing. I'm on my way to that.

I've got a search. I can never be settled, for whom is reserved the darkness of darkness forever. They speak great swelling words of emptiness. Oh man, they can have the greatest speech you ever heard with all these ideas. It can make such sense to us.

God says they're words of emptiness. They allure through the lusts of the flesh. Man, I want to believe that if I could just do what He's saying we could do, man, you know what? It makes sense. God's okay with that.

They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. It can happen to you or I.

If we let our guards down, if we don't guard our heart.

Jude talks about them as well. Listen to some of the words that Jude uses as he talks about the problems in the church that were extant during that time. He says the same things.

Jude, Jude, verse 3, first of all, he starts off with, I'm writing you concerning our common salvation. I find it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the fact that you are a good person.

You are a God of faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Content for that, hold on to that. What's happening? Why are you being blown from here to there in every port under the sun? For certain men have crept.

There's that word. They're not entering by the door. They've crept in unnoticed.

They, going down in verse 4, they turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

They turned the grace of God, the calling, everything that he's opened our minds to into license. You can do whatever you want.

And it starts off little, but it grows.

Verse 8, these dreamers, they defile the flesh.

You can see some of the asceticism that's in here.

Verse 12, there are spots in your love feasts while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves.

They are clouds without water, empty, might look good.

There's no rain in them, nothing that's of any benefit. They're clouds without water, carried about by the winds.

They're just moving from here to there, floating, floating, floating, floating.

Here, there, and everywhere. I'm not going to settle into the Church of God. I'm not going to settle into the body.

I'm going to be above it all. And like Balaam, the word Balaam means, I won't be of the people, but I'll float above them, and I'll watch them, and I'll determine what I'm going to do. Because I'm looking, I'm not looking, I'm not settled, I'm not of the sound mind that the Holy Spirit puts in us.

Carried about by the winds, laid autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots.

They're raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame, wandering stars, wandering stars.

You know, stars stay in their place.

These are wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

You see the words that Paul said that was happening in that New Testament church. You see the words of Peter.

He's talking about these people who creep in, who do these things, who have been called, who have the knowledge of the truth, but somehow they just can't conquer, or they don't conquer their own nature.

They don't conquer whatever it is that leads them astray.

I didn't mention that Nicholas, by the way, it means conqueror of the people or destroyer of the people when you look up what the actual meaning of that word is.

God says to us, something that Nicolaitans didn't do, when you find the truth, hold fast to it.

Know you found it, stick to it, and don't let yourself be pulled away by lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, or the pride of life, thinking that you've got some great knowledge and you're above it all.

All those things are extant in us today and among us today, and it's incumbent upon each of us to kind of look at ourselves very, very, very closely.

Because things start off a little, but then they become part of the doctrine. There can be little deeds we do, little things that we do that we wouldn't think.

Maybe we, in the Greek, they had all these pagan festivals. Maybe Nicholas and some of these people were like, it's just a pagan festival, I know it means nothing. I'm going to go over to that pagan festival and whatever.

My friends are over there, my family's over there, how can it hurt? I know better than that. We can do the same thing today. We can do the same thing today. It doesn't matter, I know this and whatever, and I'm there, but you know what? I really want to do it, and I'll justify it in my mind because people will always give us the justification too, right?

If we listen to it, we have to be people saying, you know, the Bible says no. It says don't do that. Don't do that. Do it the way I say. So it starts off little, then all of a sudden, you know, another person sees an example of someone saying, yeah, we need to do that. And pretty soon we've got things that are going on, and you know, we can look back to, you know, I could read through 2 John, I won't read through 2 John. You can certainly read through it again, another one that I keep coming back to that says, you know, don't even listen. If someone isn't preaching the whole truth of Christ, don't even listen to them. Why would you waste your time? You can find the whole truth of God by looking at the Bible. You don't need to go out and listen to people who don't have the whole truth of God because they obviously are not of God. And so we can find things and look back, and you know, John says, I tell you, over and over again, he says, the way you were taught in the beginning, do it.

Do we keep the Sabbath day the way we do now, the way the church kept the Sabbath day back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s? Do we? Or have things crept in and saying, it's okay to do this, it's okay to do that, you know what, it makes sense to do that, and yeah, God's okay with that. And all of a sudden, the Sabbath kind of looks, apart from actually going out and physically working, can kind of look like a Sunday. You know, it's okay to do this and whatever, as long as we're not working, that's not what the purpose of the Sabbath day was.

We're going to look at the Feast of Tabernacles. We're talking about the Feast of Tabernacles. What is the Feast of Tabernacles? When God ordained the Feast of Tabernacles, did He say, hey, you know what, make sure you've got all these tours, you've got all these things going on to keep your interest in whatever, and you choose here, go there? Or was it, here's what you're going to be doing at the Feast of Tabernacles. Is God working with us today to bring us back to the way the things are, were in the beginning, that we get rid of the stuff that's been added on, and go back to what He intended us to do, and the way He kept. We can look at healthcare. You know, I mean, you look at where the church was back in the 60s, and maybe too austere in some of the things. It's not wrong to see a doctor. But then we have those who, I mean, every time I have a pain, I pick up the phone and I call a doctor. Forget God until later, but you know, whatever the doctor says I'm doing, we have people that go from pendulums, and that's what the Nicolaitans did.

It became a deed, and all of a sudden it became a doctrine with some. This is the way I live my life. And it's not the way that God said. And so the Nicolaitans, when God says, I hate these things, I hate the way they did things, because they didn't hold fast to the truth of God. They put their own spin on it. They did their own things.

Here's what? Here's what? I didn't write that on the source here, from another place. So this is another one on early church leaders. It says, According to the writings of the early church leaders, Nicholas taught a doctrine of compromise, right? It's okay to do that. It's okay to do that. Nicholas taught a doctrine of compromise, implying that total separation between Christianity and paganism was not essential. From early church records, it seems apparent that this Nicholas was so immersed in paganism, Judaism, and Christianity that he had a stomach for all of it. It was all true. He had no problem intermingling these belief systems in various concoctions and saw no reason why believers couldn't continue to fellowship with those still immersed in a pagan world full of its mystery cults. What does God say? Come out of the world and be separate. And all that that means. You know? Doesn't mean we hate the people in the world. Doesn't mean we never talk to them. Doesn't mean we cut them off. But spiritually, we don't participate in the things that they do. We have to watch what we're doing. We have to be very aware of what is going on in our lives and the various little things that we have. And you know what? We need to keep our eyes in the Bible, our eyes on God, our eyes on the truth, and stick to it. Satan is well at work. He has been well at work with the Church of God from the time that Paul talked about it. Well, actually earlier than that, right? Acts 6 is where Nicholas, you know, he was there back in the beginning, and somewhere along the line, he left it. He left it, and he added these things in. He didn't pay attention to. Don't add to. Don't take away. Do it exactly the way I say.

You and I can't do it. And it's time. It's time for us because those who hold, those who do the deeds of the Nicolaitans, those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, they're not going to be in the kingdom of God. They're not going to be in the kingdom of God. So when God says He hates it, you know, it is incumbent on us to pay attention and to look at ourselves and pay attention to what's going on in the Bible and saying what the Nicolaitans are.

And as I say that, you know, there's another group of people who will talk about Nicolaitans, and all it means is hierarchy. I don't see that anywhere in the Bible as a problem in the New Testament church, but you know, it could be part of it as well because anything Satan can use to take us away from the truth is there. And by the way, that's not at all extant in the ancient literature at all. So let's go back to and close here in Revelation 2. Revelation 2. Now let's read again verses 14 and 15 since we've talked about Balaam and we've talked about the Nicolaitans. Verse 14 says, I have a few things against you, all the churches of God, down through the ages, because you have there those who would hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. And you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. And his message to you, his message to me, his message to everyone who he has called, repent. Or else I will come to you quickly and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.