Pergamos: Settled in the World

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Transcript:

I’ve got to share something with you. I’ve got to show you something. For Christmas, my in-laws bought me a book of bread recipe and some of the equipment that goes with it with the baking and mixing and all of that.

And I started messing around with it, experimenting this week. And they all tasted good. Some of them came out a little misshapen.

This is not the prettiest one that I made, but it’s the prettiest one that didn’t get eaten. I made this, and it’s making me hungry just right here. It’s sourdough bread, and it’s got a garlic and herb crust on top.

and I’m just very excited, and it’s a lot of fun. And before any of you men start laughing at me because I’ve taken up baking as a hobby, I’m fully supportive of any hobby that makes more food, okay? So you can laugh at it all you want, but if your wife gets mad at you, you might starve.

Unless you learn to do things like this. I can have bread anytime I want. As I’ve been experimenting, I’m by no means an expert.

I’ve been baking bread for a week now. I’m by no means an expert, don’t claim to be, but I have learned some things, and I know some things by experience now that I only really kind of knew in theory. Things about how bread works, things about how yeast works.

And you know, the Bible talks about yeast, it uses the word leaven, but it means yeast. And a lot of times, leaven or yeast is used as a symbol of sin. The Apostle Paul told the churches in the early years to purge out the old leaven. Told them a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

And you know, I learned that to be the case this week. I put all the ingredients in the recipe I used. You didn’t have to knead the bread.

You didn’t have to do a lot of mixing. You just kind of throw everything together. Use warm water, not hot, because you don’t want to kill the yeast. As I explained it to Benjamin, he’s asking what that stuff was.

I said, it’s little bugs. I said, and they get in there, and they like the warm water. They get all excited, and then they decide to eat the flour, and they kind of burp, and it makes the bread bright.

That’s the best explanation I could give for what was going on. But you know what? I didn’t thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly mix all the ingredients like you would think you’d have to do.

Just stick it in the KitchenAid and let it run for a minute. And it says, the recipe said everything will just mix as it sits there. And by golly, they were right.

I mean, just put a little yeast in the bottom. Don’t even mix it in real well. I took it out of the mixing bowl and put it in this container that I’ve been given.

It made about that much in the bottom of this, I don’t know, was it a two or three gallon container? Put a little bit of it in the bottom of this container. I thought, that’s not going to make much bread.

Covered it with a towel, came back later, and I thought, where did all that bread come from? You know what? The yeast spread, and it went throughout the whole thing.

The yeast, the leaven gets in everywhere. You put a little bit in one side of the bread, it’s not going to stay in just that side of the bread. It’s going to spread through the whole lump.

And you know what? The longer you leave that leaven in there, the longer you let it sit, because the idea of this recipe is to put it in this container, put the lid on, put it in the fridge, let it sit at least overnight. But they said you can leave it in there for 14 days.

And the longer you leave it in there, the stronger the flavor gets. it continues to work, it continues to, I don’t understand all the science behind it, it continues to eat the flour and burp, and it continues to get stronger, and the flavor changes, and in this case it’s a better flavor, but you see the yeast’s getting stronger, the leaven gets stronger the longer you leave it in there. And so I’ve witnessed with my own eyes, I’ve seen with my own eyes and learned from experience a little bit what I’d only sort of read about and understood in theory from the scriptures, that a little bit of leaven will spread throughout the whole lump of dough.

I mean, you can’t just, you can’t say a little bit of leaven over here and it’s unleavened on this side. It’s going to spread through there, unless immediately you pull out the side that you’ve gotten the leaven in. It’s going to spread throughout the whole thing.

And you know what? The longer the leaven stays there, the stronger it seems to get. The stronger it seems to get.

Sin, ladies and gentlemen, I know this is a good example of leaven, but sin is the exact same way. If it’s not cut out, If it’s not cut out as soon as it’s put in, if it’s not pulled out as soon as it’s found, it will spread through the whole lump. And the longer it’s left to sit, and the longer that leaven, that sin, has given an opportunity to ferment and to do its job, the stronger it will get.

Sin is like leaven in our lives. It will spread throughout the whole thing, and it’ll only get stronger until we do something or throw the whole lump out. We’ve got to purge the leaven.

It’s like that in the life of a church as well. We can say, well, this sin is going on in our church, but I’m not participating, so I’m okay. We’re not going to do anything about it.

I’m just going to sit over here. I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to make sure I’m right with God, and they’ll have to deal with God, and it really doesn’t matter.

They can just do whatever they want to. Folks, that leaven, that sin, will eventually infect the entire church. Now, we took a little bit of a detour last Sunday so we could focus on the observance of the Lord’s Supper, but I want to come back today to Revelation 2, where we’ve been, and continue our look at these seven churches, and sort of hold the mirror up to ourselves and say, if Jesus were to come to church, what would he say to us?

Of course, we don’t know that. He’s no longer here in earthly bodily form walking among us. We do have his Holy Spirit, but he is no longer walking among us like he did during his earthly ministry.

But folks, we do have these letters to seven different churches who really are not that unlike what we see today, other than the fact that they were 2,000 years ago, a little bit different culture. But they still dealt with the same problems, the same human condition that we deal with today. They were people just like we’re people.

And we see the letters that Jesus wrote to these seven churches by John’s hand. And I think we can look at them and either see, well, thank goodness that’s not us. Or see, okay, Jesus commends them for what they’re doing.

Maybe we’re doing well in that area and need to try even harder. Or maybe Jesus says, you need to get this fixed. And it’s the same that we’re doing.

We can use these passages. We can use these churches to hold the mirror up to ourselves and say, what are we doing well in his service? What are we maybe not doing so?

The third one, the one we’re going to look at today, we’ve already looked at Ephesus, and they were doing a lot of things very well. Outwardly, they were a good, solid church. They were very active.

They were serving the Lord, but they lost their first love. And sometimes we, too, can get caught up in doing all the right things and forget the reason behind it. Folks, church is not about just do the right thing, do this, follow this list of rules, and you’re okay.

It’s about a condition of the heart. And if our hearts are not in love with Jesus, all the good we do really doesn’t. The second church we looked at was Smyrna, and he didn’t have a whole lot to point out that was wrong with them.

They were just a church that faced suffering. They were suffering because of persecution. They were suffering for other reasons, and his reminder to them was stay strong.

This world can only throw so much at you, and on the end, I’ve got something better for you. And so stay strong in your faith. Don’t get defeated.

Don’t get beaten down by this world. Stand strong. And then he turns his attention to the church at Pergamos.

Now through discussing this, you may hear me say Pergamos, you may hear me say Pergamon. It’s the same city. Don’t think I’ve switched to talking about a different city.

Sometimes with old cities, they’re conquered by one group of people and then by another group of people and they change the name. It’s the same city. But Jesus wrote to the church at Pergamos because they were dealing with this problem of having leaven in their lump.

He doesn’t use that terminology here, but they were dealing with the problem of sin infecting part of the church and the other part of the church being faithful and them just thinking go on like that. Well, you know what? People like to quote Abraham Lincoln saying this, but it was Jesus who actually said that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

You can’t go on serving two masters. The church can’t go on half of the people living in the world and half of the people living for Christ and expect that we’re just going to go forward and everything’s going to be all right. Jesus calls them out on that.

And so he says in Revelation chapter 2, starting in verse 12, and to the angel of the church in Pergamos, write, these things saith he which hath the sharp sword sword with two edges. Every one of these letters he starts out by identifying himself. He identifies himself as the Lord Jesus Christ and then he points out some attribute about himself that fits with what they’re dealing with.

And here he identifies himself as the one who has the two-edged sword. Now as with a lot of things in Revelation we can look at that and say well what does that mean? But if we turn elsewhere in scripture it tells us what a lot of these things.

The Bible talks about elsewhere a two-edged sword where it says the word of God is quick and powerful like a two-edged sword. That word quick doesn’t mean fast, it means alive. God’s Word is alive and powerful, and it’s like a two-edged sword.

And the description given there is that it’s able to divide asunder even between soul and spirit. I can’t even, at this point, give you the definition of what the difference is between soul and spirit. And yet the Word of God can divide between that, or between bones and marrow.

I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with animal bones. I would hope maybe for making soup or something like that. But bone and marrow, I mean, that’s pretty hard to divide between.

You break open the bone, there’s the marrow. Where’s the dividing line? And it says, the Word of God is able to split, and the Word of God is able to divide, and the Word of God is able to discern.

It’s sharp. It’s powerful. And so when he says, I’m the one with the two-edged sword, he’s identifying himself and saying, I’m the Lord Jesus Christ, and I’m the one coming with the Word of God, which is something they were going to need, because the church was already divided.

They just willing to divide over their division. They weren’t willing to call sin, sin. They weren’t willing to say, you know, there are sheep and there are goats, and we need to deal with this situation.

And Jesus said there needs to be some trimming, and there needs to be some purging of the living here. He says, I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seed is, and that thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. Now, he says again, which we’ve heard in him talking to churches, I know thy word.

Again, he tells these churches, hey, I didn’t just drive by and look at you. I know who you are. I’m familiar with what you’re doing.

The places where you serve me, and you think nobody’s ever going to know what I’m doing for the Lord. What a thankless job. He says, I see your service.

I see the things you’re doing. I see the way you live your life. The world may never notice, but the God of the entire universe looks at us and says, I know you.

I know you intimately. You know what? He knows us better than we know ourselves.

He says, I know your works. That’s not just your service. That’s the way you live your whole life as a Christian.

He knew their works. And he says, and I know where you live. You know, sometimes people will think, it’s just, don’t you know where I live?

Don’t you know where I work? Don’t you know how hard it is to be a Christian in this place? Don’t you know how hard it is to do the right thing in this place?

I used to hear that all the time when I was a teenager and later on when I was working with teenagers in the youth group. You know, it’s just so hard to follow Christ. Don’t you know the family I’m in? Don’t you know the household where I live?

Nobody else there follows Jesus Christ. How am I expected to follow Jesus Christ in an environment like this? Jesus says, I know where you live. Now, to the people at Pergamos, that was an important thing for them to understand.

Pergamos was one of many centers of pagan worship in that part of the world. There’s an altar, one of many temples in the city of Pergamos, an incredible altar that still exists today. It was not one of the just temples in the ancient world, but it was one of the most impressive in that part of the world.

It was so impressive that in the early 1900s, the Germans came in and they excavated it and said, hey, we kind of like this. Let’s take it back to Berlin and reassemble it brick by brick. And there it still stands today.

It was not the Nazis who took it there, but they were also very enamored of this temple of Zeus. And people would come from miles around to worship at this altar, this massive altar. And they would come there to bring their offerings and burn their incense and do whatever else, and they would worship there these pagan gods who I believe, based on scripture, to just be tricks from Satan.

There are no other gods. There’s no Zeus. There’s no Athena.

There’s no Aphrodite. They’re all just tricks by Satan to get people to worship something other than the one. But they would come from miles around, and they would come to worship at this altar.

Folks, that’s the Satan’s seat that he’s talking about. I know where you live. You live even where Satan’s seat is.

I don’t think that means the capital of the world as far as Satan is concerned. That doesn’t mean it’s where Satan’s headquarters is. But he said, you live right there where Satan dwells.

The devil himself is hard at work in your community. I know where you live. I know what a challenge it is for you to be a Christian, for you to be a faithful Christian in the midst of this atmosphere.

You talk about intense persecution and intense spiritual oppression. They were right in the thick of it. I don’t know if you’ve ever been someplace where you could just feel an evil presence.

And I’m not trying to be all weird and new age on you, but there are just places that I’ve walked into. There are books I’ve picked up. There are people I’ve been around that I just, oh my goodness.

I can give you an example. Back in October, Charla and I were in Santa Fe in New Mexico. We went to Walmart because everywhere you go, you’ve got to find Walmart first thing.

We walked into Walmart, and that was the scariest Walmart I’ve ever been into in my entire life. I think we had to go through a metal detector to get in and get out. We were shopping.

It was late at night. The place was still packed. But we’re walking looking for a checkout.

And there came this woman toward us dressed all in black. And I’m not going to judge somebody about the way they’re dressed. Sometimes I’m dressed all in black.

I’m dressed in a lot of gray today. But she was dressed all in black, had on some kind of witch’s hat. And I was talking to Charla, and she was looking down.

And we got about five feet from each other coming toward each other. And we both just looked up at the same time, and it’s like magnets. We both just went.

. . And I can’t explain it other than I felt like it was the Holy Spirit and some other kind of spirit going, Oh, we don’t.

. . This is not.

. . She looked at me and made the ugliest face and went the other way.

And I couldn’t wait to get out of Walmart either. I have picked up a copy of the Koran and tried to look through it for a class assignment in college. Had to read through parts of it and write about it.

Every time I picked up that Koran, I was just overwhelmed with an unease. They lived in that kind of environment all the time. They lived with that kind of spiritual oppression going on all the time.

And he said, I know where you live. I understand the environment you live in. You live where Satan is hard at work.

And you hold fast my name. Nevertheless, he’s talking to part of the church at Pergamos. And he says, you live in the midst of that place.

And you have still held fast to my name. You have clung to my name as though it was your only hope. You have not denied my faith.

There would be a lot of pressure. There was pressure from the government. Hey, convert or we’re going to burn you at the stake.

there was a lot of pressure from the commercial interest in town. Hey, don’t you know how many tourist dollars all this pagan worship brings in? Do you really have to preach against that?

Can you just stop trying to drive people out of business, trying to drive people out of their livelihood? I’m sure it was like a lot of places in the world where even if it’s not illegal, there’s a lot of cultural pressure that they want to shut the church down. They’re under all this intense pressure to say nothing of the spiritual pressure, and yet he says, you have not denied my faith.

You’ve lived as a faithful Christian. Even in those days where Antipas was my faithful martyr, there’s a man named Antipas in Pergamos, who was actually, history tells us, was ordained by the Apostle John to be leader of the church in Pergamos. People were there worshiping a demon who were, according to history, were possessed by demons, as we see other people in the New Testament being.

And he prayed over them, and in the name of Jesus, drove demons out of people. And the people of Pergamos then turned and sacrificed him on their pagan altar as punishment. One of those convert or die moment.

And he tells the church at Pergamos, even when one of your own was put to the sword, even when he was offered, when his life was offered on one of these pagan altars, still he did not. I want very much for Jesus to be able to write that kind of thing about me. I don’t know that I’m there yet to say you’ve been faithful.

You’ve been so faithful in the midst of all of this pressure to do other. Even in those days where Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you where Satan dwelt. He has a lot of complimentary things to say about the faithful people in the church at Pergamos.

But speaking to the church as a whole, he says, but I have a few things against you. That’s not a good thing to hear from the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a few things that we need to talk about. In my experience as a pastor, it makes me nervous whenever somebody says, can I talk to you?

We need to talk about some things. That very rarely. Okay, what have I done?

I definitely don’t want to hear that. I have a few things that we need to talk about. But he says that to the church at Pergamos.

I have a few things against you, because thou hast there them that hold to the doctrine of Balaam. Okay, so when he says thou hast there, It sounds like he’s leaving some words out, but that’s the way they talk and translate it 400 years ago. He’s saying, you have a few there.

You have some people there in your church who hold to the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. He said, you have some people there who are following the doctrine of Balaam. What he’s talking about there is in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament.

Balaam was called by the king of Moab, who was concerned about the people of Israel, their growth, the fact that they wouldn’t worship his pagan gods. He was afraid they were going to come and kick him off his land. And so he called Balaam, who was a prophet, and said, hey, if I pay you some money, will you go and curse the people of Israel?

Well, Balaam says, I’m a prophet of God. I can’t just do that. I can’t just say whatever you pay me to say.

He says, okay. But Balaam says, what I can do, he goes back to the people of Israel, I can’t curse the people of Israel because I work for God and they’re God’s chosen people, but I can lead them astray so that God will judge them, so that God will destroy them. And he goes back, and by his suggestion, by his leading, if I’m remembering the story correctly, he corrupts the people of Israel.

He gets them to intermarry with the Moabites. He gets them to commit fornication. He gets them to worship pagan idols, so that God eventually judges the nation of Israel, so that God eventually brings his judgment.

People die. People pay for their crime. And so this idea of the doctrine of Balaam is this teaching, hey, you can do whatever you want.

It’s okay. You can get by with it. God doesn’t mind.

God’s forgiving. The same things that Balaam encouraged the people of Israel to do. There were some in the church at Pergamos who said, Hey, we have a loving, forgiving God.

We can do whatever we want. He says, there are some. Well, this is something I have against you, Pergamos.

You have some in your church who are teaching this and who are living this. He says in verse 15, So hast thou also them that hold to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I also. Now, he talked to the church at Ephesus about the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

And they were teaching just about the same thing. Hey, sin as much as you want. Sin as much as you can.

God will forgive you. The Apostle Paul dealt with this very idea. There were some people who thought, Hey, if every time we sin, grace abounds.

There’s grace. Then maybe we should sin a lot, so there’s lots of grace. That does not make any kind of sense, unless we’re talking about a twisted mind that already just wants to sin as much as possible.

And the Apostle Paul said, Should I sin that grace may that much more abound? God forbid. Hey, if you love God, why do you want to go back to living in an ungodly fashion?

And so these deeds of the, what were the deeds of the Nicolaitans at the church at Ephesus, what they were just merely doing and living like, eventually became a doctrine to the church at Pergamos. What they were doing bled into what they were teaching in another place. And hear me on this, your deeds, your behavior, your behavior will either affect your beliefs or your beliefs will affect your behavior.

Whichever one you commit more energy. I’m either going to live as a Christian because I believe what a Christian believes, Or I’m going to live like the world and I’m going to change my beliefs to suit what I want to do. And what one group of people does and says, well, that’s okay.

It’s just a little bit. Another group will see that and do to action. With our children, what they see us do in moderation, it’s okay.

It’s just a little bit. God won’t mind. They will do to action.

So we’ve gone from their deeds to now they’re teaching this in the church. The same thing as Balaam. Hey, you know what?

Worship idols. You can bow at the temple. Hey, as long as you worship Jesus too, it’s all right.

They tried the same thing in the Old Testament. What’s it matter if we bow down to all these other little things? And as long as we worship God too, no, no. The worship of God is the worship of God only.

He doesn’t want half of our heart. He doesn’t want half of our worship. And so what they started out doing, they were now to live however you want.

Well, God is forgiving and God is merciful, but God is also just. And so he says, you’ve got this going on in your church too. Now we’re looking at this and he’s commending them for their faithfulness and sticking close to Jesus Christ and then saying, but this is going on here too. I don’t think it’s that the people in the church were just confused and one day they’re this and one day they’re that.

I think there was a faithful remnant. I understand this to teach. There was a faithful remnant within the church who was doing what they knew they were supposed to do, even though it was hard.

And there was another part of the church, and I’m not doing this on purpose, saying this part of the church good and this part of the church bad. If you’re sitting on this side, please, that’s not on purpose. I just realized I’ve been doing that the whole time.

This side good, this side bad. There was a part of the church that said, we’re going to do the right thing even when it’s hard. And there was another part of the church that said, we’re going to do the easy thing and just conform to the world.

And then this part of the church was saying, well, we’re okay with God. God will sort them out. We’re not going to do anything.

They were leaving the leaven in the lump and not just thinking it wasn’t going thick down. So what does he say to do? He points out the problem, but Jesus always gives them an answer to the problem as well as pointing out the problem.

He says in verse 16, repent, repent. You notice there are not 12 steps here. 12 steps to get back right with God.

He says, repent. One word, two syllables, six letters. Had to count real quick.

Very simple, repent. Now, I’ve talked about this before. My understanding of what repentance means based on studying it out in the scripture, I used to think repentance means I’m going to get my life cleaned up.

I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to turn away from my sin. Repentance in the Bible means changing your mind.

But again, changing your mind. And so your behavior should follow your belief. I’m going to change my mind and agree with God.

See, our natural state is to say, you know what? I sin and I like it and I don’t care what God said. To repent is where the Holy Spirit gets a hold of us and we change our minds and realize, you know what, God is right all along.

This is sin, this is wrong and it needs to stop. Now, I’m powerless to stop it on my own. I can’t make myself sinless, but I agree with God, this is wrong.

And so he says, repent. Repent, get on God’s side. Just change your mind and agree with God.

Get on God’s side, God will clean you up. He says, repent or else. Gotta love that phrase, or else.

Repent or else. I will come unto thee quickly. Now people prayed in the New Testament.

We pray sometimes too. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. I don’t think we want him to come quickly in this instance.

This is sort of a don’t make me come back there situation. I will pull this car around and you will not enjoy what happens next. Or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

Now he’s going to come and fight against them and he’s bringing a sword. He’s not talking about violence here. The sword of his mouth.

The word of God. Go back to that two-edged sword that he talked about in verse 12. He will come and fight against them with the word of his mouth.

He’s talking about bringing the judgment of God on their sin. Folks, that is not a hand I want to be spanked by, nor do you. He’s talking about bringing the judgment of God.

Judging people according to the word of God and saying, we are going to clean house. You either repent and clean house or I will come and clean house for you. And then he never leaves them without a promise.

He that hath an ear, let him hear. Anybody who’s still listening at this point, anybody who hadn’t gotten mad and stormed out, anybody who hadn’t tuned out, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth.

Okay, several things, and there are several things that are disputed by theologians. What does this mean? What does that mean?

And a few of these are some of the rare instances in Revelation where we can’t look somewhere else in the Bible and say, well, what does that mean? We kind of have to look to the history of what was going on in their time to understand what he’s talking about. First of all, he says the hidden manna.

And there are several explanations offered for what that means. the one that makes sense to me, is the idea they put some of the manna, the Israelites put some of the manna that they gathered in the ark, in the ark of the covenant, not Noah’s ark, the ark of the covenant, and stored it there. Now I don’t think that that means that God was going to come to them and bring them 1,500 year old manna to them.

What he’s talking about is, I will provide. That manna was in the ark always as a symbol of God’s provision to the nation. God fed them when they were in the desert.

And God’s saying, just the way that I cared for the people of Israel during their wanderings in the desert, Just the way that I cared for them through the years of the judges and their kingdoms and them getting scattered all over the place, I’ve still cared for them. I’ve still provided for them. I’ve still protected them.

He says, I’ll do the same for you. Folks, that’s the explanation that makes the best sense. That God’s talking about, I will provide for you and I will care for you.

And you can trust in my providence. And when he talks about the white stone with the name written on it, again, several explanations are offered. The one that makes the most sense to me is that in some of the ancient games, I don’t know if it was the Olympics or other contests that they would have.

The winner would be given a white stone as a token to the entrance to the victory celebration. And if that’s the case, then what that means is he’s talking about admittance into the great victory celebration that awaits all of those who overcome the world by faith. Now, I’ve referred to this verse several times.

I actually remembered to look it up this morning. 1 John 5, 4 says, For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. I want to be ve