The Unveiling, Part 5
The Nicolatians
JJ: Okay we will continue on the Book of Revelation with the new book called “The Unveiling” and the last thing we covered was, “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, thou hast left thy first love”, and as we said the guy got permission from his inner self to rebel from his group, his teachers that were teaching him false things that he found out were not really true and did not really work in his life. He probably held on for a little while but then it just got too much for him to handle so he broke off and set himself free, but then he goes overboard and he gives himself permission to anything he wants to do and when he wants to do it.
He does this for period of time until in a quiet moment his soul speaks to him and says, “You have left your first love.” Everything that you were taught was not bad. Sure you have had false teachers but everything that they taught was not bad. They said do not steal; do not kill; do not hurt people and so on. They taught you some things that were okay; they taught you some things that required discipline and all this worked together for your good so do not throw everything away. Do not throw out the baby with the bath water.
In other words, keep the things that are good. Return to your first love where you approached learning with a discipline, where you honored your teachers that were good. There are certain things that you have learned in your struggles with your many lifetimes, so you want to return to your first love. Recognize what is false in the things you have been taught and drop those things but keep the good and the true and return and honor in those that brought to you a good discipline over the years.
My first love was the discipline I had in the Mormon Church and it was a strong discipline. We had to pay 10% tithing and with other donations it amounted to almost 15% of our income all-together. It took tremendous discipline to do that. We could not smoke or drink coffee, a lot of sexual restrictions also and so this discipline stimulated in me a desire to learn and go beyond when I might not have otherwise.
So that was probably my first love. When you break free from something like that with all that restrictions the inclination is to just go to the extreme in the other direction and this is what the disciple does. He leaves his first love where he exercised discipline and lives like the prodigal son with little or no discipline.
As we study the Labors of Hercules on Tuesday you will see that Hercules made quite a few mistakes also. He disregarded a lot of things that he knew better and so we also have to create that balance in the middle.
Next the scripture gives him some more advice, “But this thou hast, thou hates the Nicolatians, which I also hate.” That is interesting that the voice of God says that He hates something. Everybody says God doesn’t hate anything and just loves everything. Chuckle.
Audience: Chuckling
JJ: But He says He hates these Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans were a group patterned after the disciple Nicolas and he was really a decent guy and quite pure and very disciplined and he had only one wife. But somehow because of certain things that he taught followers got the impression that anything goes with saint Nicolas so to speak. So after Nicolas was no longer on the scene his followers began to distort his teachings and they became very promiscuous.
What I think that God hated about the Nicolaitans was that they took the teachings of a good man and distorted them to be exactly the opposite of what he really stood for and what he really taught. He was for sexual purity and they turned into sexual promiscuity. Larry and I were talking about Joseph Smith and the same thing may have happened to him, there a lot of speculation that there is a possibility that he may not have all the physical relations with his wives that he was accused of and yet everyone who followed him said that we are going to practice polygamy and have all these wives because that is what Joseph Smith wanted to do.
This is what happened the Nicolations, they took a man who believed in sexual purity and only had one wife and distorted his teachings to have many wives and concubines with lots of sexual relations and everything goes. It doesn’t say what God hated about them but I think what God hated about them was that they took a good man’s teachings and they turned them upside down.
Has that happened before in history that we know about? Has it happened with Jesus teachings on love for example? How about the Christian church that burned everybody with fire that asked the wrong questions. They did this in the name of Christ and said that this was an act of love and it purified the church. Was that turning the teachings of Jesus upside down? That is like the Nicolations and followers will often do things like this.
Just because they are on the path does not mean they are perfect, but there is one thing that a person learns on the path. He saw two things that were really wrong and that he had been lied to and the second thing is he saw that the authorities of the day turn a lot of the teachings from the past upside down. God says I do not like this and you do not like this as well and we are on the same page here.
So this is one thing that the early disciple learns is to recognize is false teachers. He also learns about those teachers that take those teachings from the good men of the past and turn them completely upside down.
The scripture ends with this,
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Now he uses an interesting wording that in some circles is controversial, “to him that overcometh.” This is one area where a lot of new agers are in illusion. They think that we do not have to overcome anything and everything should be effortless. Those who think this need to read the title of the extract from a statement by the Tibetan, He points out that He has struggled and fought His way to the place on the path where He is and we must do the same. In other words, where He is, He had to get there through great struggle and effort. Nothing that is worthwhile comes without struggle and effort. Everybody in every belief system creates a short cut so the path is easy. How do the born again Christians do this, what shortcut do they take.
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