Jesus' letter to the church in Pergamum, Revelation 2:12-17
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Seven - Pergamum
Thank you, Abram, and guys, for leading us this morning. Tyler is out of town, and so we appreciate you helping us. If you have your Bible, take it out. Find the last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation, Chapter 2. We are in a series called "Seven." There's an outline in your bulletin, if you'd like to follow along there. This morning, we're going to be looking at Revelation 2, beginning in verse 12, the letter to the church in Pergamum. Now, there's an amazing number of books that have been written in recent years about church growth and church health. Books written to say, "Here's what a growing church ought to look like. Here's what a healthy church ought to look like." And there's books that have been written about how to attract unchurched people to your church. And there's books that have been written about how to keep people in your church once you've gotten them to your church. And there's books written about reaching different generations, how to reach boomers, or how to reach builders, or how to reach the great generation, or how to reach millennials, and make a difference in those people's lives. There's really helpful books that have been written about if you find yourself shopping for a church. Maybe you move to a new community. What should you look for when you're shopping or looking for a new church home? All of these books are good. They're all helpful. They all have a place. But in all of that body of literature, sometimes we miss the obvious question. And that is not what do millennials want from a church, or what does this generation want, or what do the unchurched people want from a church. But the obvious question is what does Jesus want from his church? And the good news is we don't have to guess about the answer to that question, because the Bible tells us very plainly what Jesus wants from his church. And one of the most helpful passages is the passage that we're studying on Sunday mornings, Revelation 2 and 3. For all the debate that centers on the book of Revelation, all the symbolism and the apocalyptic literature and the timelines and all the things we disagree on, we can look at these two chapters, Revelation 2 and 3, and we see very clearly and very plainly Jesus writing letters, seven letters to seven different churches and telling them exactly what he wants from them. Real letters to real churches made up of real people, churches that had real issues, churches that had real strengths and real positive things that could be said about them and churches that had shortcomings and things that they needed to repent of. I'll put my map up on the screen this morning. I showed you this last week. You can see Patmos and all capital letters. That's where the apostle John was. He was on an island out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. He had been exiled there. It was a prison colony, basically. He'd been sent there because he wouldn't stop talking about Jesus. Well, Jesus came to visit him there and he said, "John, I want you to write some letters to the churches just across the bay there in what we call Turkey." And so we looked a couple of weeks ago at the letter that Jesus wrote to the church in Ephesus. That was the first letter that we looked at. And when Jesus wrote to the church in Ephesus, he said, "I'm warning you, church in Ephesus, about the danger of a diminishing love. Your love for each other is fading. I'm warning you about that. What I want by implication is a church that loves people." That was week one. Week two, we looked at the letter that Jesus wrote to the church in Smyrna. That was last week. Jesus warned them about the danger of fearing persecution, the danger of fearing persecution. In other words, what Jesus wanted from that church and from every church is a church that is willing to be faithful unto death. That's what he wanted from Smyrna. This morning, our passage is Revelation 2, beginning in verse 12. It's a letter that Jesus wrote to the church in Pergamum. And it's a letter where Jesus warns the church about the danger of theological compromise, doctrinal compromise. In other words, what Jesus wants is a church that will stand for the truth. He wants a church to steal a line from the book of Jude that will defend or fight for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. That's what Jesus wanted from Pergamum. That's also what Jesus wants from a manual in Odessa. And so if you have your Bible open, I want you to follow along as I read the Word of God. Revelation chapter 2, verse 12 down to 17. The Word of God says this, "To the angel of the church in Pergamum right, the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast to my name and you did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balaic to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicoleantans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has a near let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manner. And I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. This is the Word of God is Jesus' rights to the church in Pergamum. Did you notice what Jesus said in verse 13? He said, "I know where you dwell where Satan's throne is." Where Satan's throne is. Pergamum was a large city, and this is not a great picture, but this is the best picture I could find of the city. And you can see up on the top of this hill, sort of in the middle of the picture, where most of the city was built, and there's a lake back behind it up on the top right of the picture. And then down in the foreground, there's a huge amphitheater and more of the city built down below. These are the ruins of Pergamum. You can visit them today. It was a large, large city when Jesus wrote to this church. Probably 200,000 people lived in Pergamum when Jesus wrote a letter there. It was an educated city. They had a library that was the second largest in the ancient world. The only library bigger was the Great Library in Alexandria, Egypt. And so this was a large city, a prosperous city, an educated city, but it was also a dark city. We're going to talk more about that in just a minute, but Pergamum was a spiritually dark place. And Jesus goes so far when he's writing to these people to say, "I know where you live, I know your city, and I know that Satan's throne is there." He says to them, "There are some people in your church who have fallen into the teaching of Balaam, who have fallen into the teaching of the Nicolaitans. The spiritual darkness all around you has begin to affect you and creep into the church, and you are compromising the truth." I think it's worth asking ourselves, does that happen today? Church is in the United States of America. Does the spiritual darkness around us begin to creep into the church? And I'm not talking about Satan worshipers outside the church. I'm talking about people inside the church. Do we make the same mistake today? There's a whole bunch of churches that you could describe as seeker-driven, not just seeker-friendly but seeker-driven churches. And their entire philosophy of ministry is to say, "We want to remove anything about the gospel or anything about the Bible that might offend anyone." Some churches even take it to the point where they say the cross itself, the visual representation of the cross may offend somebody, so we're going to take that down. We don't want to offend anyone. We want lost people to feel totally and completely at home and welcome here. And in the process of doing that, they lose the gospel. There's a whole other group of churches that you could describe as prosperity churches, and you can see them on TV a lot of the times, and you can find them in any town in the United States of America, especially in the Bible Belt. These churches minimize, intentionally minimize, what Jesus had to say about the cost of discipleship, the cost of following Him. And instead, they want to encourage you and promise you certain benefits if you follow Jesus, wealth, prosperity, health, healing. Just sign up with Jesus and all these things will be yours. There's a whole other group of churches. You can find them in every town in the United States. You can find them in Odessa, Texas, that you could call liberal churches. And I don't mean politically liberal churches. I mean theologically liberal churches. You go to these churches and they may sing some of the same songs and have some of the same types of programs, but they're not going to talk very much about the blood of Jesus Christ. They're not going to talk very much about the cross where Jesus died for sinners. They're certainly not going to talk very much about the miracles of Jesus or the miracles of the Bible because they don't believe in those sorts of things. And instead, they're going to focus almost completely and exclusively on social justice type issues. And they missed it. It can happen in the United States. It can happen in the state of Texas. It can happen in Odessa, Texas, that you allow the culture around you to impact the way you do church and the way you teach in church and the things that you hold dear. And it happened in pergamum. They were compromising doctrine. They were compromising on the Word of God. And so let's just start with this question. Why do churches stop caring about the truth? When you ask it that way, no church would want to stop caring about the truth. But Jesus said to pergamum, it happens there. And we know that it happens here. Why does it happen? Number one, churches forget that Jesus is dangerous. He's dangerous. I don't know if you've ever heard anybody called Jesus dangerous. But He calls Himself dangerous in verse 12, where He says to the church, "These are the words of Him who has the sharp two-edged sword." And you read that and you and I don't know much about swords. And so we think, well, did He stop it? The little kiosk out at the mall and buy a sword? What's going on? We don't use swords. You back up to chapter 1, verse 16, and you learned something kind of interesting. When John has a vision of Jesus, he sees Jesus and there is a sharp two-edged sword. Guess where it's coming from? His mouth. It's a reminder that Jesus' words are powerful. They bring life and are you ready for this? They bring death. It ought to remind you what Paul said to the Thessalonians. When he told the Thessalonians, they were confused about the second coming of Jesus. And Paul said, listen, let me tell you one thing about when Jesus comes back. When Jesus comes back, he will destroy the Antichrist's towel with the breath of his mouth. In the beginning, Jesus spoke and everything came into existence and it came into existence out of nothing. When Lazarus was dead, several days in the tomb, Jesus spoke and Lazarus got up and he walked out. When the disciples were on the Sea of Galilee and the storm rose up and Jesus was with them, he did what? He spoke to the wind and the waves and they were calm. When the Antichrist is raised up and Jesus comes back to make all things right, he will speak and he will destroy the Antichrist. And Jesus says to the church in pergamum, you have forgotten that I have a sharp two-edged sword coming out of my mouth. My words bring life and they bring death. You have domesticated me and you have tamed me into somebody that you can manage. You cannot manage me. Jesus is reminding this church that quite frankly, he's dangerous. This is a little bit like your mom when you were growing up and you crossed a line that you shouldn't cross and your mom said what? I brought you into this world and I can do what? I can take you out of this world. You know the only difference between this and your mom is Jesus is tougher than your mom. I don't know who your mom is, but I'm certain Jesus is tougher than your mom. And he's saying to the church in pergamum, listen, you're forgetting who I am. I hold you in my hand. I have this sharp two-edged sword coming out of my mouth. I bring life and I bring death. If you've read or watched the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, the chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, this is a lot like Aslan, the lion in that story. Aslan is a character who represents Jesus in that story that C.S. Lewis wrote. And there's a young girl named Susan and she's about to meet this lion, this Christ figure. And she's a little bit anxious about meeting a lion in real life. And so she says to one of her guides, she says, "Is he safe?" And Mr. Beaver looks at Susan and he says, "Who said anything about safe?" No, he's not safe. He's the king. And Jesus is saying to this church, listen, "You have compromised the truth." And part of the problem is that you have tamed me and domesticated me into someone that I'm not. I am not safe. I'm the king and I have a sharp two-edged sword coming out of my mouth. Why did churches stop caring about the truth? Number two, they forget that Jesus expects 100%. We talked about this two weeks ago. Churches have a tendency to forget that Jesus expects 100%. Look what Jesus said in verse 13. He says, "I know where you dwell. Where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast to my name. And you did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness. Who are you ready for this?" He was killed among you where Satan dwells. Did you hear what he's saying? "I know where you're at. I know it's spiritually dark. I know that you're holding fast to my name. You're trying to be faithful to me. And I know that one of you lost your life in faithfulness to me." I understand that. Now, just sort of rewind your brain. If you were here last week, we looked at Jesus' letter to the church in Smyrna. Do you remember what Jesus wanted from that church? Faithfulness unto what? Death. That's what he wanted from Smyrna. And listen, he got it from Pergamum. He was faithful unto death. Antipas was. And Jesus has the nerve to say to this church, but that's not enough. Do you have ears to hear that this morning? Faithfulness to death to Jesus is not enough. He wants 100 percent. He demands 100 percent. He deserves 100 percent. And he says to the church in Pergamum, "Look, I realize that one of you gave your life being faithful to me." That's great. That's what I'm encouraging Smyrna to do. I'm giving you a thumbs up, but it's not enough. It's not enough. You're compromising the truth. You're sliding on doctrine, and Jesus calls them to repent. This is not on your outline. Let me just give you a couple of just sort of side lessons here. As you think about Smyrna, and then now you think about the church in Pergamum. Would it be fair to say that Satan attacks at your weakest point? Would it be fair to say that Satan doesn't need you or wants you to fall into every sin that's ever been committed? If you'll just give him one, that's enough. And so in Ephesus, he got the church, he had a foothold in the church, and they stopped loving each other. That's all he needed. He didn't need him to just close down the doors of the church and go home and renounce Jesus and say, "Cesar is Lord." He had a toehold, and that's all he needed. Then he went to Smyrna, and they loved each other. So that really wasn't a good angle, but what he found is they were fearful. They were fearful about persecution. They weren't quite sure about being faithful into death, and so he got a toehold there, and he took what he could get. And now we look at the church in Pergamum. They were faithful into death, and for all we know, they were fantastically loving and kind towards each other. But they were compromising the truth, and they were willing to not take a firm stand on the truthfulness of God's Word. And Satan said, "Look, I'll let you love each other all day long. I'll let you die for some sort of idea of Jesus all day long, but if I can get you to do this, I'll take it." And I don't know what it is for you as an individual, or you as a family, or for us as a church necessarily. Satan doesn't need us to commit every sin that's ever been committed. He'll take one, and he'll run with it to your ruin, and my ruin, and our ruin. Here's another lesson to think about. God is patient with saints, with believers who are suffering. He's patient with them. He's patient with this church in Pergamum. They had suffered. One of their own had died. Jesus is patient with them, but it does not excuse sin. There will come a time in your life where you suffer. Maybe it's because of your faith. Maybe it's because of an illness. Maybe it's because of something that someone else does to you. I don't know. Suffering will be a part of your life. Jesus is patient with those who are suffering, but it never excuses sin. One last idea about why churches stop caring about the truth. This is the third answer here. They just forget that some teaching is false. They flat out forget that not everyone who says they speak for Jesus really speaks for Jesus. And you can read in verse 14 and 15. He talks about the teaching of Balaam that led to sexual immorality. He talks about the teaching of Nickelatons. The point about what they were actually teaching is not the main point. The point is these people came along and they said some of the right things, and they sort of looked like the church going folks, and they sort of acted like the church going folks. And they just sort of assumed, well, anybody who claims to speak for Jesus probably speaks for Jesus. They forgot that some teaching is false. Forget this notion of it's true for me or it's true for you or it's true for that person. It's nonsense. It's either true or it's false. Do you understand that not every book sold in a Christian bookstore is not true? You understand that every person who stands up and says I had a dream or I had a vision or I had an experience and Jesus told me this, it's not all true. In the church in pergamum forgot that. They forgot that some teaching was false. Here's another question. What does Jesus want from a church that has failed to defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints? Very, very simple. Jesus wants repentance. He wants repentance. Verse 16 says therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. A couple of things interesting there. You can reread this letter and it is crystal clear that not everyone in the church had fallen into this false teaching. "Some," Jesus says, "some of you have fallen into this false teaching." And then Jesus turns around and who does he call to repent? Not just the some, the whole church. Some of you have fallen into it. Some of you are just putting up with it. All of you need to repent. Also interesting to me as you think about pergamum is the exact opposite of Ephesus. We looked at the first letter that Jesus wrote in Revelation 2, the church in Ephesus. Jesus told the church there, "I'm proud of you because you don't tolerate false doctrine." The problem with you, Ephesus, is that you don't love each other. Then you come over here to pergamum and he says to them, "You love each other. You get along. You're very tolerant of each other in each other's opinions." The problem, pergamum, is that you are not standing on the truth. Ephesus, you stopped loving people. Pergamum, you stopped loving the truth. All of you need to repent. I want a church that loves people and I want a church that loves the truth. Don't let anyone ever tell you that both of those things can't be true in a church. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you have to compromise one or the other. Jesus says, "I want both. I want you to love people and I want you to love the truth." Did you hear the threat that Jesus gave the church in pergamum? What he wants from them is repentance and then he says this, just in case you missed it. "If not, if you won't repent, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth." Do I need to tell you that it's bad for Jesus to declare war against your church? Do I need to tell you that you do not want the one with the sharp two-edged sword coming against you? Okay, just so we're all on the same page, it is not good for Jesus to declare war against your church. And he says to the church in pergamum, "Love the truth, stand for the truth, fight for the truth, or I will declare war against you." What is he promise a church that loves the truth? What is he promise a church that fights and defends the faith once for all delivered to the saints? Number one, he promises hidden manna, hidden manna. You remember in the Old Testament, God fed his people in the wilderness with bread from heaven, they didn't know what it was, so they called it what is it, and in Hebrew that sounds like manna. And they ate it for 40 years, God provided for them that way. You remember that Moses' brother Aaron collected some of it, most of it, all of it in fact spoiled if you kept it for a day, but Aaron kept some, put it in a jar, and it did not spoil, it was a miracle of God, and he kept it in the ark of the covenant as a reminder for God's provision. You remember that. Then you remember the Babylonians came and destroyed the temple, and the ark of the covenant was in the temple, and the jar of manna was in the ark. And so there's all sorts of theories, you can google them and find all kinds of crazy stuff. Some people say Jeremiah, the prophet snuck in there right before the Babylonian army came, and he took the ark out and he saved it. Some people say God sent an angel, and an angel went down and took the ark and took it to heaven and kept it safe from the Babylonians, and there's even a group, maybe we could stop by on our mission trip, Chris. There's a group in East Africa that say they have the ark, they've got it in a building, you can go visit it, they've got this nice fence and all sorts of stuff, got with the machine gun there, kept guarding the gate to keep you out. So there's all sorts of people that have all sorts of ideas about the ark, and the manna that was in the ark. And what does Jesus mean when he says, "I will give you hidden man." Just listen to Scripture. John chapter 6, Jesus speaking, "I am the bread of life. Your father's ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever." You get it? We're not talking about wonder bread. Not talking about Ms. Barrett. We're talking about Jesus. I am the manna. I am the living bread from heaven. If you eat of me, you live forever. And Jesus says to the church in pergamum, "Stand for the truth. And if you do it, you get me." What does he promise a church that conquers? Number two, he promises a white stone, a white stone. Some people say this is an admission ticket. And you can find evidence that in the ancient world, in the Roman Empire, that they used specially carved white rocks as your ticket to the theater, your ticket to the Colosseum, your ticket to the games. And so some people say, "Look, Jesus is giving you an admission ticket. It's your ticket into heaven." Sort of the symbolism there. The other people say, "No, it's taken from the ancient courtrooms where there would be a jury of people to listen to a case and they would each, each one, each juror be given a white stone and a black stone. And after all the evidence and arguments had been brought forth, you would cast a white stone for innocent and a black stone for guilty. There's evidence of this in archaeological sources. And so some people say, "Jesus is giving you this white stone that because he died your death, he took your place on the cross. You are now counted as innocent or as righteous." And some people say, "No, you've all got it wrong. It's taken from the world of the gladiators." And you know that gladiators were slaves and sometimes there would come a point in their life where they would be set free. And if that happened to a gladiator, guess what he would be given? A white stone. And it would have his name carved into it and have the date that he was set free on it. And so some people say, "Look, Jesus is saying that you've been set free from sin. You've been set free from death." And he's given you this stone like the gladiators get. You want to know what I think? I have no idea what the white stone is. And I think anybody that tries to tell you they've got it exactly all figured out is full of it. Here's what I do know. I want to get a stone, right? I don't know exactly what it means. I don't know all the symbolism, but I want to get one of the stones from Jesus. And he says, "If you hold fast to the truth, I'll give you the hidden man. I'll give you a white stone. Number three, I will give you a new name." A new name. You can think about all the Bible characters who were renamed by God. You can think about Abraham, who was once Abram. You can think about Sarah, who was once Sarai. You can think about Paul, who was once Saul. You can think about Peter, who was once Simon. In all of these cases, God is exercising authority over somebody's life. He's claiming ownership over their life. And he's saying, "I'm turning your life around. I'm setting your life in a new course, a new direction. And I'm giving you a new name." And he says to the church in Pergamum, "If you hold fast to the truth, I will give you a new name." So hidden manna, a white stone, and a new name that nobody knows. Listen, I feel like I know a decent bit about the Bible. I'm not, and I can't even pretend to stand up here and tell you that I've got all of that figured out. I don't know what all of that exactly means and what it all is going to look like one day. What I do know is that it's a meal that I want to go to. And it's a gift a stone that I want to receive. And it's a name given to me by Jesus that I want to hear. And he says to the church in Pergamum, he says to the church at Emmanuel, "Hold fast to the truth, and these are the things that I promise you." How do we do that? How do we hold fast to the truth so that we can have the hope of the promises that Jesus offers us? Three quick ideas and we'll wrap it up. Number one, read the Bible. And what I mean when I say that is read the Bible. Read it. And then read it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Read it. There is no way that you can stand and defend and fight for the truth of this book if you don't know it. And there is no way that 30 minutes from me on a Sunday morning is going to make you really know this book. And I don't know what Sunday school class you're a part of. I hope you're a part of a Sunday school class. If you're not, I'd love to help you find a Sunday school class. But I don't care what teacher you have. They're not good enough to fully and completely teach this book to you. Read God's Word. Read it. Read it. Read it. Read it. Read it. If you want to stand for the truth, you've got to read it. Number two and three go together. Be teachable and be discerning. And I put them up there together because most of us make one error or the other. Some of you are very, very teachable. That's a good quality. But it's dangerous because you think anybody who says they're speaking for Jesus knows what they're talking about. That's not always the case. Some of you are easy prey for false teaching because you just accept anything and whatever that comes your way. You bought it at the Christian bookstore. It's a so-called Christian movie. Well, it must be great. Not necessarily. And then there's others of us on the other end of the spectrum who try to be discerning and we try to be careful and we always sort of have our radar on. And the problem for some of us, I fall into this category, is that you're almost always on a witch hunt. You almost always feel like you don't have anything left to learn. Nothing new to figure out that you've got it all pinned down and put into a nice little neat box. You don't need anybody to teach you anything. And I think if a church and an individual is going to stand firm and fight for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, we need a little bit of both of those things. We need to be teachable enough to say, "You know what? I don't have it all figured out and I'm constantly going to submit my life and my beliefs to the authority of God's Word." And at the same time, we need to say, "You know what? Not just anybody who comes along claiming to speak for God really speaks for God. And I do need to have my radar on and I do need to watch out for these things." Jesus is calling the church in Pragamma and He's calling the church right here, 2014 Odessa, Texas and manual Baptist church, to be a church that loves the truth. If that's going to happen, we've got to read the truth. We've got to be teachable and we've got to be discerning. I want to pray for you as we close. You bow and I'll pray. Guys are going to come up. We're going to sing one more song together. Father, we just want to take a minute to thank you for Scripture. We believe that your Word is true. We don't need to qualify that or explain that or limit that in any way. Father, it's true. We want to be people. We want to be families. We want to be Sunday school classes. We want to be a church that takes our stand on the truth of your Word, that works hard to think and to be taught and to be discerning about what true doctrine is and what true theology is and what the truth of your Word is. Father, all of that takes effort on our part and we pray for grace to exert ourselves to know the truth, to love the truth and to fight for the truth. Father, we thank you that you speak to us so plainly in Scripture about what it is that you want from us. Father, we want to be the kind of church that Jesus wants us to be. We believe that this church belongs to Jesus and Jesus alone. We pray that He would be Lord over our lives, over our ministries, over our programs, over our teachings, over all of it. Father, we want to take a minute just to sing and to worship and to respond to what we have heard from you this morning. As we do that, we pray that you would send your spirit to work in our hearts, to convict us, to encourage us, to strengthen us. Father, we pray all of this in the name of Jesus our King. Amen.