Postcards from Patmos: Dear Pergamum

Transcript

JRS 6
07/31/2022
Postcards from Patmos: Dear Pergamum
Revelation 2:12-17
Jesse Randolph


In Galatians 5:22-23 the Apostle Paul, writing under the direction of the Holy Spirit, says this, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” And in that list of nine characteristics of the truly regenerate born-again Christian, what we all know as the fruit of the Spirit, God has provided us with a well-rounded list of how we ought to think, how we ought to act, what our lives in totality ought to look like. I would submit to you, though, that in the day in which we live, and really over the past 40-something years, Christians have been facing great cultural pressure to add another trait. A tenth fruit of the Spirit, if you will, in addition to what Paul has already under the inspiration of the Spirit given us in Galatians 5. See, over the past several decades Christians have been expected to be not only kind and not only good and not only peaceful. But there has been this increasing pressure placed on Christians to be tolerant. If we want to have a voice, if we want to be respected, if we want to be welcomed, if we want a seat at the proverbial table, we better make sure we are being tolerant. Or else we will be branded with the label no one wants to bear, that of being intolerant.

Well, before anyone of us can respond to a charge of being intolerant, of course we need to make sure we have our definitions straight because the definition of tolerance has changed dramatically in recent years. See, up to a few decades ago tolerance meant that you could make exclusive truth claims, you could say things like sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman is always sinful. You could say things like the founder of Islam, Mohammad, was a proven adulterer and pedophile. You could say things like Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And you could say those things even if they were unpopular positions and still be treated with the dignity and respect due any person created in the image of God. Not anymore. The meaning of tolerance has changed dramatically in recent years. So now in order to avoid being labeled as intolerant, you cannot make exclusive truth claims. You aren't allowed to say that another person's ideas are wrong. You must accept all other ideas as being equally valid to your idea. My truth is my truth and your truth is your truth and off the cliff of absurdity we go. Well, as Christians we aren't subject to the shifting winds of the culture. We aren't beholden to the culture's inane attempts to relativize truth. Instead we are committed to the timeless and true precepts of Scripture which contain the very words of God. And there is no place in Scripture where Christians are told to be tolerant in the way that the world is telling us that we are to be tolerant. Instead as Christians we are allowed to, and indeed we need to, call wrong, wrong; call falsehood, falsehood; and call sin, sin.

Well, a close cousin of that word “tolerance” is the word “compromise” because when you are told you are being intolerant, the not-so-subtle implication that is being made is that you need to compromise. You need to change. You need to get with the times. You need to bend your convictions to meet the demands of the culture. You need to shape your beliefs to fit the mold of modernity. And I would submit to you this morning that there is no place where we see a more stark collision between the clear commands of Scripture and the culture's call to compromise than in the church.

The culture wants more entertainment. Great, let's preach shorter messages with more stories and tell more jokes that make people laugh and giggle and feel good about themselves. The culture wants more equality? Then maybe pastors shouldn't be so authoritative when they preach. Maybe instead of a pulpit I should have a stool and just sort of sit up here and process with you guys. In fact why limit the pastorate to men? Let's have female pastors, let's have homosexual pastors, let's have transgender pastors, let's have the pulpit represent whatever sin is in vogue these days. The culture wants more social awareness? Well, then maybe we should preach more about social issues to balance out our preaching of the Gospel and the preaching of God's Word. Maybe we should preach more about saving the Sandhill cranes and bighorn sheep and box turtles and the economy and the Ukraine more than we preach about saving souls. Maybe we should preach the gospel of George Floyd and ACO and Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Gavin Newsome and MSNBC. Or to be fair maybe we should preach the gospel of Fox news and Matt Gaetz and Matt Walsh and Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson as much as we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's just let the pulpit be tossed to and fro by whatever ways the political winds happen to be blowing.

In the text we will be in this morning we're going to see Jesus Christ, the Lord of the church, addressing a church that had compromised. Addressing a church that was compromised. And a church that now found itself off mission. I'm speaking of the church at Pergamum. If you're not there already, please turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation 2 and we're going to look at the letter to the church at Pergamum in verses 12-17. Revelation 2 starting at verse 12, as Jesus addresses this compromising church, the church at Pergamum, God's Word reads, “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has a sharp two-edged sword says this: ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’ ”

I'll remind you this morning that I am preaching a series through these seven letters or postcards that the ascended and glorified Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, wrote to these seven churches in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, late in the first century A.D. And in these postcards what we see is Jesus giving His candid assessment of the spiritual health of each of these churches as He provides this mixture of words of commendation and words of concern or even criticism to these lampstands. But the postcards that Jesus wrote some 2000 years ago were not only written to these churches. These postcards are not artifacts that are frozen in time. Rather, they are also addressed to us and they help us answer the question that has been posed a few times already—how are we doing? What would Christ say about our church if He sent a postcard directly to Indian Hills Community Church? Would we receive words of commendation? Would we receive instead words of criticism? Or would it be some evenly balanced mixture of the two?

So far we have looked at two of Christ's postcards. We've looked at the church at Ephesus, the first postcard. A church that was sweating and toiling and working hard. A church that was theologically astute and spiritually discerning. But a church that had lost its first love, specifically its love for Christ. And then last week we looked at a postcard that Christ wrote to Smyrna. Which was a dear church, a suffering church, a church that was refusing to back down in its witness for Christ. And as a result a church that was being persecuted all the way to the point of death.

This morning we are looking at postcard #3, the postcard that Christ wrote to Pergamum, a church that like so many churches and so many Christians today was trying to be tolerant, was trying to fit in with the times, was trying to be relevant. And as a result a church that had compromised. As we are about to see, the Lord Jesus Christ had some sharp words for this church and its compromised ways.

Now before we get into Jesus' words to this church, let's dig into some of the background to sort of set the scene for what was going on in this city and in this lampstand. Now the city of Pergamum was about 55 miles northeast of the church we looked at last time, Smyrna. So if Ephesus were like Crete and Smyrna were like Seward, Pergamum would have been like Raymond, as we make our tour around southeast Nebraska. Now in Greek this word “Pergamum” meant “citadel,” which is appropriate because this city stood on a hill that was a thousand feet in elevation and it could be seen from miles away. And of course the citizens of this city could see for miles and miles. Pergamum was a large city with a population of about 150,000 people living there. It was an established city. It was a well-known city. The ancient historian, Pliny the Younger, said that Pergamum was the most famous place of Asia. It was an intellectually important city. It had a large decorated library containing over 200,000 books. That's a lot of books when you consider this is before Gutenberg and the printing press. And it had a medical school, a medical school that was famous for caring for wounded gladiators as they went about the games they were participating in.

But what Pergamum was most known for was not its library, not its medical school. It in fact was most known for its religious practices. See, Pergamum was a hotbed of pagan worship activities. The citizens of Pergamum couldn't fall down fast enough to worship at the feet of so many different false gods. I'll give you just three of them to sort of give you a flavor, a taste, of this city's craving for false worship. First, there was the worship of Zeus who was now in these Roman times known as Jupiter. Pergamum was the home of a massive altar dedicated to this god who sat above the pantheon of all the ancient Greek and later Roman gods. Pergamum was known for the worship of a god known as Asclepius who was the god of healing in this time and in this part of the world. In fact it was from this temple to Asclepius that Pergamum's medical school was founded. But the medicine that was being practiced here in this medical school was not the kind of medicine that we are used to in modern day hospitals. This was more like medicine mingled with a lot of superstitious pagan practices. Then there was the worship of the emperor. We know that Pergamum was a city that was strongly devoted to emperor worship. In fact Pergamum was the hub of emperor worship in the whole region of Asia Minor. Pergamum in fact was the first city in Asia Minor to build a shrine dedicated to the worship of a living, sitting emperor, a ruler, a Caesar. Which it did in the year 29 B.C. when it erected a shrine to honor Augustus. So while Pergamum was a large city and a thriving city. While Pergamum was a safe city and a desirable city. Maybe even a city that would be named as one of the top ten places to live in the Roman Empire. At the same time it was a dark city and a lost city. As its citizens were engaged in a wide range of false worship practices related to a bunch of fake gods.

And it was into that context in Pergamum that God eventually flooded this city and this region with the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A church was established there sometime in the mid-first century, and it grew. And it did so, as we are about to see, despite some difficult circumstances, and despite opposition and persecution and even death.

With all that as background, let's now see what the Lord says to the church at Pergamum. And as we turn back to our text, Revelation 2:12, our first main takeaway, our first main preaching point, for this morning is the importance of holding fast to Christ. If you are a note-taker, that would be our first heading for this morning, “Hold Fast to Christ.” Look at verse 12. It says, “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write.” You can stop there. As I've explained in the previous messages in this series the word “angel” here in our English Bible is a transliteration of the Greek word “angelo.” But that word “angelo” does not mean a winged, chubby-cheeked cherub or cupid. It does not refer to even one of the burning seraphim of Isaiah 6. Instead the word literally means “messenger.” And in the context of these seven letters that Jesus is addressing to these churches, the messengers that Jesus would be writing to, I would contend, would be the pastors of these churches. So I take what is being said here in this sentence, “and to the ‘pastor’ of the church in Pergamum write.”

And note who it is that is writing to the pastor of the church in Pergamum. It's not someone who just wants to run a few ideas by the church, it's not someone who just wants to meet the church where it is. No. As we keep reading, it's “the One who has the sharp two-edged sword.” That's the One who is speaking to the church at Pergamum, “the One who has the sharp two-edged sword.” That's a reference, by the way, back to Revelation 1:16. We covered that a few weeks ago. And we saw there the Apostle John. He turns around in that heavenly vision he received there on Patmos, and he hears this voice behind him. And you recall what John saw. He turns and he beholds the risen and ascended Christ in all of His glory, the glorified King of kings with His long robe and His golden sash and His hair like white wool, like snow and eyes like a flame of fire and feet like burnished bronze and a voice like the roar of many waters. And His face, it says, was shining like the sun in its full strength.

And then last we see, Revelation 1:16, “out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword.” That sword that is protruding from the mouth of Jesus Christ in Revelation 1:16 is the same sword that He wields now as He addresses His church in Pergamum. And the sword mentioned there, by the way, is no small dagger. We're not talking about a pocket knife here. No, the word for sword refers to a large broad sword, the type of sword that later in history we would see medieval knights wielding. And the type of sword that Jesus wields here (and this would have been known by the audience as they received this letter) was a sword that represented one who wielded authority. One who could and did execute justice. That's what Jesus is telling the church at Pergamum here. That He is authoritatively in command. That He is righteous and just in all of His ways. And that would have meant something to Pergamum which was a city that was fully under Roman control. With local authorities who wielded the power of the sword. Authorities who had the power to execute at will. Authorities who could enforce capital punishment on demand. To hear these words from the sovereign Christ, the One who had this justice-dispensing sword protruding from His mouth. That He is there. And He is addressing them. And that He is speaking to them. That would have reminded these saints at Pergamum that while the power of the Roman sword was in some sense dangling over them, true power, power over life and death, ultimately belonged to Jesus Christ. He is, after all, as 1 Timothy 6:15 puts it, “the blessed and only Sovereign.”

But not only that, Jesus' words here would have reminded this church at Pergamum, and they remind us all today. That one day the uneven scales of justice in this world will be brought level. One day every wrong will be righted. When those who wickedly oppress God's people will receive their payday. When Jesus who is Lord of all unleashes on a rebellious planet His righteous wrath. When He makes war on the world with this very sword protruding from His mouth. This is just what this church at Pergamum needed to hear. They needed to hear that the Roman authorities that were sitting over them were not the ultimate authority. They needed to be reminded that their Roman overlords, if we could put it that way, were ultimately under the Lord. They needed to be reminded of who was ultimately in control. And that would have provided them with great encouragement. The encouragement they needed to persevere. And push forward in remaining faithful to the Lord. To press on for the Prince of peace.

Which takes us to our next verse, verse 13. The Lord says, “I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.” Let's start just with the first few words here when he says, “I know where you dwell.” Jesus here is saying, just like I know all about the church at Ephesus, I know all about its service and its knowledge, but also its unique temptations to loveless orthodoxy; just like I know about the suffering saints at Smyrna; I also know about you, Pergamum. I know you. Specifically he says to this church, “I know where you dwell.” I know your address. I know your context. I know your circumstances.

By the way did you catch how this verse is bookended? Just looking at verse 13? He says, “I know where you dwell” at the head of the verse. And at the end of the verse he says, “where Satan dwells.” Jesus is saying here to this church at Pergamum, where you dwell is where Satan dwells. So when Jesus is saying here, I know where you dwell, what He is ultimately saying is I know that you live behind enemy lines. I know that you and the adversary share the same zip code. That's significant. See, Christians in all circumstances and in all times and in all places are called to do what James 4:7 tells us to do, which is to resist the devil. But resistance doesn't always look the same in every place at every time with every person, does it? No. Resisting the devil might look one way in Anytown, USA on a sleepy Saturday morning, But another way at 2 a.m. on the Los Vegas strip. Resisting the devil might look one way in Cedar Rapids or Chicago. But another way in Kiev or Kandahar. Resisting the devil might have looked one way in 2019 America. But it might look a little different in 2022 America. Does it not? That's the idea here. Satan has influence all over the world. 2 Corinthian 4:4 says he is “the god of this world.” But his grip is especially tight on certain times. Over certain people. And in certain places. That's what is happening here at Pergamum. Satan had an especially strong grip and influence on this city and its culture.

But Pergamum is not only described as being the place where Satan dwells. The Lord's description of this city gets even more specific there in verse 13. Where He says it is “where Satan's throne is.” See, Pergamum had this unfortunate distinction at this time in history of being the seat of Satanic power in Asia Minor. The dear believers here lived in the capital city of wickedness in this part of the world. They lived “where Satan's throne is.” And what does it mean that Satan had his throne at Pergamum?

Lots of theories have been thrown out. I believe the strongest interpretative option for Pergamum being called Satan's throne would be because of its strong ties to Emperor worship. As I've already mentioned, Pergamum was the first city in this region to build a shrine dedicated to worship a living person, a living Caesar Augustus in 29 B.C. And by this time Pergamum was not only a place where emperor worship was happening, it was considered the capital of emperor worship. It was a city that was proud of this distinction. The citizens of Pergamum wore this distinction like it was a badge of honor.

And in this type of atmosphere Christians would have been under a tremendous amount of pressure to betray Christ by worshiping a mere man, the emperor. But the Christians in this city couldn't and wouldn't do so. The church was steadfastly loyal to Christ, even if it meant ostracism at best and martyrdom at worst. And as we are about to see, Christ is going to commend them for remaining true to their witness for Him.

Look at the next part of verse 13. He says, “and you hold fast My name.” You hold onto My name. You cling tightly to My name. Christ has so many different names, as we've seen, revealed in Scripture and each casts light on some distinct aspect of His person and His character. We know that from our study of God's Word. Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, Immanuel, Savior, Lord, the Alpha and the Omega (the beginning and the end), the Word of God, the Wisdom of God, the Power of God, the Lamb of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Shepherd, the Branch, the Vine, the Root, the Light of the World, the Morning Star, the Rock, Cornerstone, the Mediator, the Priest, the Advocate, the First Born, the last Adam, the Head, the Prince, the King, the Judge, the Holy One of God, the Way, the Truth, the Life. How often have you held fast to one of those names of Christ. When you felt feelings of despair. When you've experienced loss. When you've faced fear. When you've encountered anxiety. When you've experienced great joy. Each one of those grand truths of Christ revealed in His name. They ought to greatly minister to us as we really reflect on who He is. Those names certainly ministered to the early church at Pergamum. It was to His name, the name of Christ, that those believers were holding fast. Not their own names, not the names of their parents, not the names of their provincial governor, not the name of the emperor, not the name of any false so-called god, not the name of their pastor. But to the name of Jesus Christ alone. And they receive here their commendation for doing so.

The verse continues, it says, “and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith.” This means they did not in any way deny or distort what it means to truly trust in Jesus Christ. They didn't water down the Gospel. They didn't promote easy believe-ism. They didn't encourage new believers to walk an aisle or pray a prayer or ask Jesus into their heart. No. Because they had heard an accurate Gospel message. And they had responded to an accurate Gospel message. They were now presenting an accurate Gospel message to their unbelieving neighbors there in Pergamum. They were presenting the bad news of man's sinful condition. And they were presenting the good news of Jesus Christ. And Him crucified and now pleading with nonbelievers to repent and believe in the Gospel. And as we are about to see, they paid the price, specifically the price of persecution.

Continuing on in verse 13, after it says and they “did not deny My faith,” it says, “even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.” The church at Pergamum had been openly loyal to Christ. They had openly witnessed to their faith in Christ. And now they were being persecuted for it. Christ here specifically commends one of these dear Christians at Pergamum, Antipas, who apparently died for holding to the truth of Christ and His Gospel. Now we don't know anything else about Antipas other than what is revealed here in this verse in Revelation 2. It is possible, as some have surmised, that he was the pastor of the church at Pergamum, but we really don't know that for sure. What we do know is what we see in the text, that he was killed. And what we do know is that Antipas was killed for being Christ's witness, and not only that, His faithful one, as it says.

See, there have been countless biographies written about men and women who were faithful to Christ, even to the point of death for Him. Justyn Martyr, Jim Elliott, Polycarp, Perpetua. Read all through “Fox's Book of Martyrs” and more modern renditions of martyr biographies. But can you imagine being this man, Antipas, whose biography was written by Christ Himself? Can you imagine being the guy who eternally etched on the pages of Scripture is called by Christ, “My faithful one?” And to have that title, the title that the Lord gave you, the one thing that people will know about you for eternity? Can you imagine the joys of heaven that Antipas must have been experiencing over the past 2000 years as this revealed faithful one? Do you think that when we meet Antipas in glory one day he is going to have any regrets about how resolute he was for Christ here on earth? Antipas was Christ's faithful witness, a Gospel-driven man with a spine of theological steel.

And like Antipas the church at Pergamum as a whole was faithful in their witness for Christ. They were strong. They were refusing to buckle to imperial pressure. They were refusing to go along with the emperor cult. They were refusing to bow to evil. But as bold and as firm as they were in refusing to bow to the pagan rulers of their day, as real as the persecution was that they were suffering and facing as a church, Pergamum was far from being an all-star church. They had by no means arrived, they were not batting a thousand.

As we turn to verses 14-15 we're going to see the tone of this postcard to Pergamum shift, we're going to see it shift from commendation to concern, from commendation to criticism. Jesus is about to tell this church, though you hold fast My name, though you are bold, though you suffer, you are compromised and you have compromised. And the tone of this postcard shifts. And if you are a note-taker, again the first point would have been “Hold Fast to Christ,” the second point is this, “Hold Firm Against Compromise.”

Let's look at verses 14-15. It says, “But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” Jesus here is saying, I started with the good news, Pergamum, but now it is time for Me to deliver the bad news. And the bad news is that you have compromised by allowing false teachers to creep into My church. Namely the teaching of Balaam and the teaching, it says, of the Nicolaitans. As we're about to see, Christ had a real bone to pick with both of these groups of false teachers, and we're about to see why.

Let's start with verse 14 and the teaching of Balaam. Now you remember the story, right? Balaam and Balak. I bet we could call up some of our kids, if they were in here, and get them to recite the whole story for us. Balaam and Balak, the account is given in Numbers 22-24. Let's hit some of the highlights, we'll flip there in just a minute. The Israelites have come out of Egypt and they have wandered through the wilderness for 40 years before finally coming into the Promised Land. They have just destroyed the Amorites and they are looking to pass through the land of Moab. The king of Moab was Balak. And Balak was shaking in his sandals about the prospect of these successful Israelites now passing through his land.

So Balak hired Balaam to curse the Israelites so that they couldn't cause harm to his people, the people of Moab. But the plan to curse the Israelites, you'll recall, didn't work. Because each time Balaam opened his mouth attempting to declare a curse on the Israelites, God instead put words of blessing into his mouth. So that he ended up blessing the Israelites instead of cursing those who he had been hired to curse. But that didn't stop Balaam because though he was not able to curse them, thanks to the divine hand of our God, he sought to corrupt them. And he did so by plotting to use Moabite women to lure the Israelites into the behavior of the godless culture that was all around them in that part of the world.

In fact flip with me, if you would, over to Numbers 25. And I know we have some longtime believers in the room. But I know that the Lord is bringing new people here and so I'm just going to help you out if you're a newer believer or maybe not a believer. So the Old Testament Pentateuch, that's the first five books of the Old Testament, go like this: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and then we're going to look at Numbers, and then the fifth book, we're not going there today, is Deuteronomy. So turn with me to Numbers, that's the fourth book in order in the Old Testament. Numbers 25, look what's happening in verses 1-3. Numbers 25:1, “While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel.” That is sort of summarizing what I just mentioned about Balaam's work there.

Now you might be saying as you look at that text, wait a minute, Jesse, I see that the people here of Israel stumbled into sin, but I don't see anything about Balaam playing a part in that like you just said he did. Well, to get to that part of the story we have to flip over a few more pages to Numbers 31. Let's look at Numbers 31. And the scene here is that Israel is slaughtering the Midianites. In context here Midianite is synonymous with Moabite. Meaning Israel is slaughtering the same people now who had previously caused them to stumble into sin. And what we see here in Numbers 31 is that Moses is angry against the Israelites because they haven't finished the job. He was angry that the people of Israel. The people he had been charged to lead had not slaughtered the Moabite women. They had only slaughtered the Moabite men. They hadn't finished the job. The job that God had given them. The command that He had given them, a very clear command to slaughter the Moabites in total.

Look at Numbers 31:15-16 where we see Moses' anger here coming out. It says, “And Moses said to them, ‘Have you spared all the women? Behold, these,” meaning the women, “caused the sons of Israel through the counsel of,” see his name there, “Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor., so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord.” What's the point? Well, apparently at some point Balaam had gone behind the scenes and told the Moabites or informed the Moabites how they could now get the Israelites to stumble. So if Balak's plan of getting Balaam to curse the Israelites wasn't going to work, apparently what Balaam had done is tell the Moabites, there is a different way you can get the Israelites to fail and to stumble. Namely by falling into the same practices of the Moabites. And in the end Israel was led to worship idols. In the end Israel did start committing acts of immorality. And all as a result of Balaam's wicked backroom-dealing ways. That's why as we get back to Revelation 2 and see the Lord using Balaam as a negative example here. That the Lord has such strong words about the teaching of Balaam. The teaching of compromise. Teaching of syncretizing true worship of God with these pagan false practices.

Well, bringing it back to Balaam here in Pergamum. What was the teaching of Balaam? There apparently were certain false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, who were now many centuries later attempting to do the same thing that Balaam had done with the Israelites but now in this newly established church here in Pergamum. And what we know is that they were encouraging (these Balaamites we could call them) they were encouraging Christians to attend pagan feasts. Where food was being eaten that had been sacrificed to idols. And where unspeakable acts of sexual immorality were being performed. And for Jesus, the One who died for these dear believers at Pergamum, the One who demanded their purity of worship and devotion to Him, the teaching of Balaam was a major problem.

But it wasn't just the teaching of Balaam, as we keep moving on through the letter, that Jesus had a problem with. Because there was this second group of false teachers that had also crept into this church at Pergamum. We see them in verse 15. It says, “So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Now we encountered the Nicolaitans two weeks ago in Christ's postcard to Ephesus. And there you might remember that Jesus commended the Ephesian church for hating the deeds of the Nicolaitans which it says He also hates. But in Pergamum the Nicolaitans received a different response than they did in Ephesus. The Nicolaitans weren't hated in Pergamum. Instead they were tolerated and accepted by some, it says, in this church.

Now to understand why this was problematic we need to understand a bit about what the Nicolaitans were teaching. See, the Nicolaitans were teaching that man was made of two parts, spirit and flesh. They were dualistic in their anthropology. Meaning they split man right in two. And what this meant with their soteriology, their doctrine of salvation, they argued that Christ had saved our spiritual essence but He did not save our flesh. There was a real bright and thick line between the two parts of man. Christ saved the spiritual, didn't save the flesh. Now the practical ramifications of their theological position were huge. Because while it would hold that the spiritual half of our bodies, our makeup, is to live righteously, having been saved by Christ, our fleshly half which was not saved by Christ can live however it pleases. Christ didn't die for that half of us. And so God won't hold our licentiousness with this half of our bodies, our constitution, against us. These were, in other words, some of the very first carnal Christians. Those who justified their sinful, fleshly behaviors: carousing and drunkenness and fornication and various other forms of feeding the flesh. It was all rooted in their deeply flawed theology.

See, Christ who bought people, both their bodies and their souls, with His own blood was rightfully upset with the teaching of the Nicolaitans. And not only upset with the teaching of the Nicolaitans but the teaching of the Balaamites. He was rightfully upset that the church at Pergamum here had allowed these teachings to infiltrate His church. For the church at Pergamum to tolerate such teachings was ultimately to make a mockery of Him, His sacrifice, His love for them and His desire for their purity, by waving the white flag of tolerance. That churches today are increasingly being pressured to wave and in fact are waving. The church at Pergamum had allowed both of these dangerous teachings to enter their midst. And all by people who were passing themselves off as Christians. The church at Pergamum had fallen prey to these teachings, the teachings of Balaam, the Balaamites, the teachings of the Nicolaitans. The church had compromised and the church was now compromised. And that was a major, major problem. And it was a problem that called for repentance.

And so now we see Christ confronting the church. He has commended them. He has criticized them. And now starting in verse 16 He is confronting them. “Therefore, repent.” The church at Pergamum needed to repent. They needed to eliminate from their midst those who had crept in and were now promoting false doctrine. They needed to get back to preaching the truths of Christ and the cross. “Or else.” “Or else,” Christ says, He will come and judge them. Look at the text, verse 16. After He says, “Therefore, repent;” it says, “or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.”

What's our lesson here? The lesson here is that you cannot have a church that compromises with the world while simultaneously standing in opposition to Satan. You can't have a church that is one thing on the inside and another thing on the outside. It's not both/and, it's either/or. What did the Lord say in Matthew 12:30? “He who is not with Me is against Me.” Which means if there are churches that are wayward in their ways, if there is a church in history or now that's wayward in its way, Jesus will not hesitate to wield His sword. To correct His church. To prune His church. To change His church. And if needed ultimately to pull His plug on the church. It's a tremendous warning to all churches today to not tolerate falsehood in our midst. To steer clear of compromising with the false teaching. To repent of all unsound theology and doctrine. Or else face Christ's judgment by the removal of their lampstand.

Jesus concludes this postcard with an appeal. And not only an appeal but a challenge to this church. He begins verse 17 by saying, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Now that idiom, “he who has an ear,” is a reference to true believers. Meaning those who because they now have the Spirit living in them have the ability to hear and will be the ones who actually listen. To them, Jesus says, let him hear. Meaning listen up. And then there are the words that He wants them to hear. These words at the end of verse 17, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” As we've seen already in this series, to overcome means simply to persevere, to endure to the end. To the church at Pergamum to overcome meant standing up to persecution. To stare down false teaching and to brace oneself for death. To the church at 1000 S 84th Street it means to stand firm on truth and doctrine. To call sin, sin. To call sinners to repentance. And to unashamedly preach the Gospel of grace. Unashamedly to stand for the truth of God's Word. All of it, every jot and tittle, in season and out of season. We do so even if it makes us unpopular. Even if it makes us stick out like a sore thumb. Even if we are considered the scum of the earth. E even if we become the laughingstock of men. Even if we are scorned. Even if we are shunned. Even if the authorities one day send us away for being that boogie-man word, intolerant.

If we are willing to live this way with this frame of mind and persevere to the end, if we overcome, Christ gives us two promises. First He says, “I will give some of the hidden manna,” there in verse 17. And manna of course is a reference to the food with which God fed the Israelites during their years of wandering in the wilderness. John 6:30-35 gives us some insight into what that manna references and points to with Christ. In fact, if we looked at John 6:30-35 (and you can go look at it a little bit later today) we see that hidden manna reference here in Revelation 2:17 is a reference to Jesus Christ Himself, who is known as the Bread of Life. Those “who overcome,” or as other translations have put it, those “who conquer” will ultimately be rewarded with Jesus Christ Himself. An eternity in fellowship with the One who saved them. Which really, I hope we are in agreement here this morning, is all we really want. Right? I mean, what else is our hope anchored in but knowing that we will spend eternity with the Bread of Life. The One who has saved us. I love what Samuel Rutherford once said on this subject about Christ being our aim as it relates to our eternal state. He said, “Oh my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without Thee, it would be hell; and if I could be in hell, and have Thee still, it would be heaven to me, for Thou are all the heaven I want.”

Jesus' postcard to Pergamum then ends with these words where He says, “I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” What is in view here is an athletic contest. See, in the first century a white stone would be given an athlete after he had completed an athletic contest and won. And what the white stone signified, what it represented, was an entry pass into the banquet that would then celebrate his victory. And oftentimes his name, historical records indicate this, his name would actually be chiseled in white stone. Carrying this over to Pergamum, the white stone reference, I believe, refers to true followers of Christ. Those who are overcomers. Those who are conquerors. Those who persevere eventually being given entrance into an eternal victory celebration in heaven once they cross the finish line into glory. Like the tree of life that was offered to Ephesus. Like the crown of life that was offered to Smyrna. The white stone is offered to the church at Pergamum as a reward for their perseverance. For enduring to the end.

And this is going to be one of those Q&A questions I'll get one of these days, this next part of the passage. And then there is this new name. “A new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” What is that referring to? What is the new name? Well, I take it to be just what it says, just what it sounds like. Each one of us, as we pass into glory, will be given a new name. It will be a personal name. It will be a special name. It will be a name that reflects God's special love for and adoption of every true child of His. It will be a name that describes the newness of our character. And ultimately it's a name that we cannot know until the time comes that God has already appointed for us to receive that name. Beyond that there is really not much more today to know, to say or to speculate on. I'm backing right into Deuteronomy 29:29 on this one, “the secret things belong to the Lord.”

Well, a man who undoubtedly would have resonated with Christ's letter here, His postcard to Pergamum, was the legendary 19th century British pastor and preacher, Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers. And after three decades by Spurgeon of a highly successful preaching ministry in the UK, Spurgeon faced, near the end of his life, one of the greatest trials he ever experienced, the Downgrade Controversy. See, Spurgeon was a Baptist and at the time in the UK this denomination of Baptists was called the Baptist Union. And because of compromise that Spurgeon was seeing in the Baptist Union on matters related to sound biblical doctrine, Spurgeon wrote a letter really bemoaning the downgrade of his brethren in the faith. And his reward for speaking up, by the way, was a formal written censure from the Baptist Union basically saying, cut it out, say no more, Spurge. (They didn't say that.) Two weeks later and not at all dissuaded, Spurgeon preached a sermon in response to the Baptist Union censure of him called “Holding Fast the Faith.” I won't read the whole sermon to you. I've already preached a whole sermon to you. I'll read a section of it though, which I think is a really important excerpt of what Spurgeon had to say to the Baptist Union who apparently was pro-compromise. Here are the words of Spurgeon, he says:

“We must never hide our colours. There are times when we must dash to the front and court the encounter, when we see that our Captain’s honour demands it. Let us never be either ashamed or afraid. Our Lord Jesus deserves that we should yield ourselves as
willing sacrifices in defense of his faith. Ease, reputation, life itself, must go for the name and faith of Jesus. If in the heat of the battle our good name or our life must be risked to win the victory, then let us say, ‘In this battle some of us must fall, why should not I? I will take part and lot with my Master, and bear reproach for his sake.’ Only brave soldiers are worthy of our great Lord. Those who sneak into the rear, that they may be comfortable, are not worthy of the kingdom . . . Brethren, we must be willing to bear ridicule for Christ’s sake, even that peculiarly envenomed ridicule which ‘the cultured’ are so apt to pour upon us. We must be willing to be thought great fools for Jesus’ sake . . . For my part, I am willing to be ten thousand fools in one for my dear Lord and Master, and count it to be the highest honour that can be put upon me to be stripped of every honour, and loaded with every censure for the sake of the grand old truth which is written on my very heart.”

Those are the words of a churchman who refused to compromise with the world. And what Spurgeon's sermon, this excerpt, teaches us and on an infinitely greater level what Jesus' postcard to Pergamum teaches us is that we don't need to bow to modern cultural buzzwords like tolerance and compromise. The path doesn't need to be made wider. The cross doesn't need to be made lighter. The Gospel doesn't need to be made softer. On these matters and many more like them there is no give, there is no bend and there can be no compromise. No. God's Word must be diligently upheld. God's Gospel must be boldly proclaimed. God's people must live credibly in light of the message we proclaim. And God's church must faithfully pursue holiness and purity. And God's glory must be passionately pursued. May the testimony of this church, Indian Hills Community Church, 1000 South 84th Street, Lincoln, NE 68510, always be that we hold fast to Christ while holding firm against compromise.

Let's ask God to give us the strength and the grace to do so now. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for our time in the Word this morning. Thank You for the sharpening effect of the Word. Thank You for the scalpel that Your Word is. Thank You for the soothing natures of Your Word, soothing aspects of Your Word as it comforts. God, help us. We are a church that can look back on its past and look back on its legacy and be so grateful for the work of the Word here at this church. But what these letters to the church remind us is that we haven't arrived. We aren't in glory. This church isn't perfect. No church is. We are still as individuals being sanctified. And this church is still corporately being purified. So God would You give us humility to know what we don't know. To learn what we don't know. To grow where we need to grow. To humble ourselves where we need to be humbled. To pursue Christ more and more faithfully in every aspect of our life, our ministry and everything we do here. God, help us to be a church that holds firm to Christ. While at the same time holding fast against compromise. Help us to be a church that is pleasing in Your sight. A church that will receive words of commendation, not criticism, not condemnation. We love You. We thank You. And give You praise. In Jesus name, amen.