In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two particular people to go to various towns to proclaim that he himself would soon be coming. He gave them special power to "tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you." Does Jesus give me this special power as well? This seemed to be specific to that time, and to those people.
What about the Churches in the book of Revelation? Well, Jesus has one Bride. He is not married to many different wives. He is married to one. But this one wife is made up of many different types and kinds of people. Jesus has one people. Gal 3:28 says, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
(Revelation 3:10)
Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
Now, there are many debates that go on in Evangelicalism about the book of Revelation. I am sure not skilled enough to speak of much of the things that are debated. But I do see a promise here for the Church in general, not just a group of particular people.
We saw the movie Courageous. My wife and I saw it two weeks ago, and I took my two oldest girls yesterday. The movie is wonderful, and I highly recommend you go and see it. In the movie, all of the men who seek to make a stand for Jesus, who seek to patiently and enduringly keep his word, are tested. They go through an hour of trial. And what we see is that Jesus does indeed keep those who keep his word.
The text says that trial is coming to those who dwell on the earth. I dwell on the earth, therefore trial is coming to me. This trial is meant to test me. The promise is that if I stay obedient to the teachings of Jesus, he will keep me. If I keep his word, he will keep me.
If you keep the words that Jesus spoke, he will make you a pillar in the temple of God (Rev 3:12)
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