(7 Churches) Church of Pergamum

Some time ago, we began looking at the seven letters in the book of Revelation that Jesus dictated to John. And after John received those, he was to send those to the seven churches in Asia Minor. By the way, Asia Minor is in the area of modern-day Turkey today.

And in Revelation chapter 1, we learn that John, one of Jesus' twelve disciples, was exiled to the Isle of Patmos. And this is behind me on the screen. The Isle of Patmos today is quite a beautiful island.

It's about 45 miles off the coast and about close to about 100 miles from Ephesus, if you were to fly as the crow flies. But presumably, John was there because he refused to bow down to the emperor. John had a vision while he was there on Patmos of Jesus walking among seven golden candlesticks.

And these candlesticks represented the seven churches that had been established in Asia Minor at that time. You can see where those seven churches are on the screen behind me. They're actually all within driving distance of about 25 to 50 miles of each other, so fairly close.

And the first church we took a look at was the Church of Ephesus. It was an established church with a good reputation, and yet they had left. They hadn't lost, but they actually left their first love, the Lord said.

And they were going through the motions without the emotions. Next, we looked at the Church of Smyrna, which is one of the only two churches of the seven, or one of two churches of the seven, that was never criticized or indicted by the Lord for anything. They were a group of Christians who remained faithful to the Lord despite severe persecution.

Now, this morning, we come to the third church, the Church of Pergamum, and it has one of the strangest descriptions of any city in the Bible. So let's read this passage together. To the angel of the church in Pergamum write, these are the words of him who has the sharp double-edged sword.

I know where you live, where Satan has his throne, yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who has put to death in your city where Satan lives. Now, I tried to put myself in this situation.

We travel sometimes, and we go to different places around Canada, and imagine going into a town and bumping into a Christian. A lot of times I meet Christians, and one of the questions I'll ask them is, oh, where do you attend church? Can you imagine me asking that question, and someone says, oh, you know, I live in the town where Satan has his throne, and where Satan lives. Why don't you come on down this Sunday? I'd be like, you know, my wife has an allergy to thrones, and I have to be watching the online service because Pastor Richard's gonna ask me what he was wearing when he preached when I get back.

I gotta know, so I'll take you up on it later. Can you imagine that description? That, where Satan lives. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you.

You have people there who would hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed idols, and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent, therefore, otherwise I will soon come to you and will fight 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, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

This morning, we're going to be taking a look at this church of Pergamum, where these Christians were surrounded by danger 24-7. Pergamum was about a hundred miles north of Ephesus, with Smyrna located about halfway in between. And unlike Ephesus and Smyrna, Pergamum was not a port city, but as the capital of Asia, it was considered her greatest city.

Both Pergamum and Smyrna were important centers of emperor worship. And last time I spoke, we learned that once a year, people in Smyrna were expected to go to the temple of Caesar, offer a pinch of incense, bow down, and declare Caesar as Lord, after which they were issued some kind of certificate, a passport as it were, that said that they were a citizen in good standing because they bowed to Caesar. Now that was once a year, but in Pergamum, it wasn't just once a year that people went to the temple.

People frequented the temple, and the expectation was that everyone would be devoted to Caesar and worship him on a regular basis. In the city of Smyrna, Christians were in danger one day a year, but here in Pergamum, they were in danger every day. If as a Christian, your neighbor invited you on a Friday night to go out for a Greek souvlaki, and spanakopita, and tiropitas, and moussaka, I'm laming all my favorites that Christine makes, and baklava, my favorite.

If you were invited out, chances are you would be expected to stop first at the temple to do a little Caesar worship. It was just part of everyday life, and along with Caesar worship, the people of Pergamum also worshiped four other main deities of the Greco-Roman world. Athena was the goddess of war.

She had a temple. Asclepius, the snake god of healing, had a specific special well-known temple around the world in that city. Dionysus, the god of wine, was there.

Zeus, his temple, the sky and thunder god, all of these temples were there next to the temple of Caesar. But the temple of the snake god, and I'm just going to show you, this rod of Asclepius actually comes from Greek mythology around 500 or 600 BC, and that snake represented healing. Now Satan does nothing original.

You know that that comes from the book of Numbers. You remember that people again were grumbling, and the Lord sent snakes amongst the people, and the Lord said to Moses, if you make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole and hold it up, everyone who looks to that snake will live and be healed. We come to John chapter 3 verse 16, one of our favorite and best known evangelistic verses.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. You know that two verses before that, you know what Jesus said? Unless the Son of Man be lifted up like Moses, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will be saved. So this was just borrowed by Greek mythologists, and they incorporated that into the temple of Asclepius, that snake healing god.

But that temple was well known all around the world, and if you had an illness or a disease, you would camp out in that temple at night, lay down on the open floor in the dark, where non-poisonous snakes were released and crawled all over the place. And if a snake happened to slither over you or brush against you, that was a sign that you were either healed or were going to be healed. But overshadowing the worship of all those deities was Pergamum's devotion to the cult of emperor worship.

And so with that backdrop in mind, let's look at our passage this morning. Revelation 2, 12, and 13, we read to the angel of the church in Pergamum, right? These are the words of him who has the sharp double-edged sword. I know where you live, where Satan has his throne, where Satan lives.

So it's not surprising that Satan chose the city with five prominent temples to set up shop. In 1 Corinthians 10, 20, Paul says the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. Is it any wonder with all of that demon worship based on this verse going on with five temples in that area, that Satan felt most comfortable setting up shop in Pergamum? I know where you live, where Satan has his throne, Jesus said.

Nowhere else in the Bible do we read anything like this, but suffice it is to say that there are cities and areas in this world today where darkness and evil is palpable. Areas where a Christian can easily sense a demonic presence and influence. I don't want to spend time on this today, but I believe that one of the top five areas in the world where Satan may have his throne today is in CERN, Switzerland, where the large Hadron Collider is located.

You need only go to YouTube and view the satanic ceremonies that have been performed there, dedicating that scientific complex to the devil to know what I'm talking about. Yet despite the opposition and oppression these Christian believers in Pergamum experienced and felt, we read, yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was put to death in your city where Satan lives.

We don't know who this Antipas was, but we can surmise that he refused to bow down to Caesar and this resulted in him being martyred. Yet despite this threat of death, these Christians remain true to the Lord Jesus and would not renounce their faith in him. Nevertheless, verse 14, I have a few things against you.

Wait a minute, who does the Lord have a few things against? Didn't we just read in verse 13 that that these are people who remain true to his name? They did not renounce their faith even under the threat of death? Yes, the Lord has something against this church. Not necessarily directly against these individuals who remain true to his name, but against the church at large because they were tolerating sin in their midst and not saying anything about it. When it comes to sin in the church, toleration is a form of acceptance.

What sin were they tolerating? Next verse. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you. You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food, sacrifice to idols, and by committing sexual immorality.

Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. This church was tolerating the sin and teaching of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans were named such after a man by the name of Nicholas, and we first read of Nicholas in Acts chapter 6. You remember the seven deacons were chosen to take care of the needs of the church, and one of them was Nicholas.

And according to Hippolytus, a second century early church father, Nicholas began compromising biblical doctrine by saying that it was okay to eat food offered to idols and to participate in occultic practices and commit sexual immorality. Now why would they tolerate this sin in the church? Possibly because they didn't want to offend the people. Maybe they didn't want the Sunday offerings to be affected.

I've been in churches like this where politics trumps purity, where sin was swept under the carpet for years, and either out of a fear of losing financial support or being criticized and causing division in the church, leadership was afraid to lovingly confront the guilty person or persons. And so in order to not offend man, they opted to offend God. And toleration of sin was so upsetting to the Lord Jesus that he says in verse 12, these are the words of him who has the sharp double-edged sword.

Repent therefore, otherwise I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Now a double-edged sword here refers to an instrument that wounds deeply. No other church was worn like this in the book of Revelation.

In this verse, Jesus is portrayed as the judge and executioner. And little did this church know that they were courting disaster because of their willingness to tolerate sin in their midst. And because of that, they were about to fall into the hands of the living God.

And Hebrews chapter 10 verse 31 says, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So here's the 10 million dollar question. Why does God hate toleration of sin in a church or an individual's life or family so much? It is because of this.

When we tolerate sin, we do against ourselves what Satan cannot do against us if we are living obedient lives. Let me repeat that. When we tolerate sin, we do against ourselves what Satan himself cannot do against us if we are living obedient lives.

You know, think about it. This church of Smyrna was smack dab in the middle of the city where Satan had his throne, where there were five temples dedicated to the worship of demons. Yet Satan could not directly attack and curse them because of the principle found in Isaiah 54 17, no weapon forged against you will prevail and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.

This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and this is their vindication from me declares the Lord. Now I've heard the testimony of more than one Satanist who said the same thing. One man recounted that before he got saved, he would be paid large sums of money by people to curse individuals to bring about their ill health, financial disaster, or death.

And many people that he cursed died for a sum of money. One day someone came to him and offered him money and said, I want you to curse this person. They happen to be a Christian.

He said, I'll do you a solid. This one's on me. No charge for this one.

I hate Christians so much I'll curse them and I'll kill them for free for you. Day after day after day, ritual after ritual after ritual, and nothing happened to this individual. And so he said one night he prayed to Satan just like we prayed to God through Jesus.

He prayed and he would get answers. And he said, he used to call him Daddy. He said, Daddy why is it that I can't kill this person? And he said, Satan answered him clearly and said, you cannot touch them because they do not belong to our kingdom.

There's another Satanist, actually one of the chief witches in Africa who got saved. They're well known amongst the elite in the world. They were flown all over the place to conduct ceremonies and put curses on Christians in different countries.

And there was this church in Africa who was known to be a church of covenant prayer. Meaning every day for hours and hours they met and they covenant prayed together for the salvation and revival of people around the world. And God was breaking out wherever they prayed and whoever they prayed for God would move powerfully.

It became known to the witch's coven in that those areas and they began to pray against and curse that church. And this fellow whose name was James, before he became Christian, had to send out a memo and SOS to the covenants to stop praying against that church because the witches who were praying curses against that church were dying. And nothing happened to that church.

This morning Josie DiDomenico is here. A few months ago I had the privilege of meeting her. The Lord had me meet her in Simcoe on the day that she was later to be saved.

When I was talking to her she says, you know Mark, I'm the real deal. I meet with other witches. We curse people.

We put curses on people. I said, what have you found when you tried to curse church or Christians? We can't. We can't curse them.

We can't. Now, after the service, if you're free, after we run and grab some coffees, Josie's asked to give her testimony. She's been growing in grace and the knowledge of her Lord and Savior over these past months.

She has a burden for the lost. She is praying and asking the Lord for wisdom and direction. She wants to go to the mission field to witness to others and share the saving power of Christ and the delivering power of Jesus in the life of people who will accept Him.

And so I'll be conducting a little interview here. If you want to come, just inform me just for maybe 15 minutes. If you're not available, no worries.

But we're really glad for what God has done in Josie's life. So all of this is to say, based on Isaiah 54, 17, Satan cannot directly attack us as a church, as a family, as an individual. However, the enemy has a back door to the church and the Christian's life, and it's called disobedience.

Walt Kelly, the creator of the cartoon Pogo, penned that famous line, we have met the enemy and he is us. Now, the Lord proves this by highlighting the story about Balaam in the Old Testament. In Numbers chapters 22 to 24, we read where Balaam is asked by Balak, who was the king of Moab, to come and curse the Israelites for him for a sum of money.

And five times Balaam stood up and was unable to curse the Israelites whom he could see from a mountain in the valley. Instead, each time blessings came out of his mouth. Then we read the last verse of Numbers 24 that ends the story about this collaboration between Balaam and Balak.

And we read this. Then Balaam got up and returned home and Balak went his own way. All's well that ends well, right? Wrong.

Between chapter 24 and chapter 25, something diabolical happened in Balaam's heart. He began thinking about all that money he left on the table, and he figured out a loophole to have the Israelites come under a curse without him cursing them directly. And based on other passages from scripture, we can surmise that Balaam returned to Balak, the king of Moab, and said, O king, let's not let a little misunderstanding come between us.

You still have that cash that you promised me? Oh, you do? Oh, okay. Well, I have some good news and some bad news for you. The bad news is nobody can curse God's people, but the good news is that they can curse themselves and bring themselves under God's judgment by sinning against His commands.

And this is how you're to do it, O king Balak. You're to announce a big shindig in honor of that false god of yours, Baal. This is to take place in the town of Peor, which is right on the Israelite border, and you're going to have food and wine and dancing, and you're going to shout out to all of your young women, and you're going to tell them to come dressed appropriately and ready to dance more than just the do-si-do, if you get my meaning.

And once the men have indulged in idol worship, have eaten their fill, and are high in spirits from the wine, your women are to sleep with the men. We pick up the story in the next verse in chapter 25, and here it is. While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods.

The people ate and bowed down before these gods, so Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor, and the Lord's anger burned against them. Now who did the Lord's anger burn against? Those Moabite flooses? No, the Israelites, those who call themselves by God's name. And we read that the Lord sent a plague among the people, and 24,000 of them died as punishment for their immorality and idolatry.

And the lesson we learn from this story is this, Satan can't curse the church, but a curse, but a church can curse itself by tolerating sin. Satan cannot curse your family, but we can bring God's discipline, a double-edged sword of punishment upon ourselves, or into our homes if we are living in sin, or bring something into our homes that offends God. Is there any proof of this in Scripture? In Joshua 6, the Israelites defeated Jericho.

You remember the story, we sing the song about it, and God caused all the walls of Jericho to fall from the inside out. And the Lord commanded before this victory that no one going in there was to take anything at all from the city back with them. It was a city devoted unto destruction.

One soldier, Achan, did not listen. And we read that he took a wedge of gold and a Babylonian garment, and he hid it in the ground under his tent. Possibly he was the only one who knew.

How many people broke God's command? One. In the next chapter, Joshua 7, the Israelites went up to a podunk little town called Ai. And they were soundly defeated, and 36 of the men were killed.

And we pick up the story in Joshua chapter 7, where the leaders called a prayer meeting. That's good, when things don't go right, we need to pray. And these men laid prostrate before the Lord, crying out to Him, and asking why He'd abandoned them.

And we pick up the story in Joshua chapter 7, verse 10. And the Lord said to Joshua, stand up. That's the first time that God ever stopped a prayer meeting in the Bible.

Stand up. What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep.

They have taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen. They have lied.

They have put them with their own possessions. This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction.

I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction. Go consecrate the people. Tell them, consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow.

For this is what the Lord God of Israel says, that which is devoted among you, O Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove it. Now, I don't know about you, but there's lots of they's and you's in these verses when it was just one man who sinned.

But here again, we find an example of how God's discipline fell on a whole community because of one man's sin. This is what is referred to as the principle of corporate guilt. Now, if we're still struggling to accept this biblical teaching of corporate guilt, we need look no further than the Garden of Eden to prove our point.

I don't know about you, but I want to go on record as saying that I had nothing to do with Eve taking a bite of that fruit, and neither did you. Yet here we all are, living in a broken, sinful world. There are individual consequences to our sin, and there can be corporate consequences to our sins.

Brothers and sisters, no weapon forged against us can prevail. But if a church, or homes, or individuals do not deal with personal sin, or things that they have brought into their homes, then in essence we open the door for the enemy to attack us, or at minimum for God to discipline us. One of the clearest proofs in the New Testament of this is found in Ephesians chapter 4, 26 and 27.

In your anger do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you're angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Now that word in the English that says a foothold is actually in the Greek a physical space around us. And God says that if we go to bed angry, unforgiving, bitter, and that could have been a year ago, it could have been 20 years, 30, 40 years ago, and we've never dealt with it, that we open up a space that allows the enemy to come, a demonic stronghold so to speak, a space where we can be attacked.

A force that ruins our joy, and peace, and harmony with those in our homes, church, or work. It just takes one angry, bitter person to create tension and strife in a home. It takes just one wounded, bitter, angry, unforgiving person to cause discord in a church.

Now often in scripture when the Lord gives bad news, He follows it up with good news. Verse 16, repent therefore otherwise, that's good news. Do you know the Lord is so loving, Psalm 103 says, the Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

Amen? He's loving, He's merciful, God is not willing that any should perish. He doesn't, I remember having to discipline my kids. I used to say to them, they didn't believe me at the time, this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you.

And it grieves God to have to discipline us, but Hebrews tells us that whom the Lord loves, He disciplines and He chastises everyone He accepts as a son. And so here, He could have been disciplining them and just taking out the double-edged sword. And He says, I'm giving you some time to repent.

Maybe you didn't hear this sermon, but this Sunday He says, I'm telling you this, you're going to get this letter read to you. You didn't really get it. You heard about it, but you didn't really take it seriously.

You thought, oh that's just him. That's just Johnny. Johnny is always a downer.

He's always speaking negatively. He's got to be more positive and loving. And the Lord says, I'm giving you another chance before I come and fight against you.

Repent therefore, otherwise I will come to you and will fight against you or them with the sword of my mouth. He who is an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes. Now overcomers are what we are to be as Christians.

That's another synonym for Christian, is we are to be overcomers. I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

Now let me give you another definition of overcomer. Two definitions in Scripture. Second Timothy 2.19, Hebrews 12.14 says, When it says, I will give some of the hidden manna, what is that manna? In the Old Testament, manna was described as bread from heaven.

Every morning when the Israelites got up, there was white residue on the ground. They'd gather it up and they would make bread or cakes out of it. In the New Testament, this manna refers to either Jesus or the Word of God, depending on the context or what is explicitly stated.

For example, in John 6, the Jews were talking to Jesus and they referenced the manna in the Old Testament. And in verse 35, Jesus said this. He's declared, In other words, Jesus is saying, guys, just as you needed that bread in the desert to sustain your physical life daily, so you need me in your life daily.

I am that spiritual bread. I am that spiritual manna. Without me, you will not sustain life eternally.

You need me. However, manna can also refer to the Word of God. In Deuteronomy 8, verse 3, Moses is now talking to the Israelites.

They had messed up time and time again. And for 40 years, he gave them manna. And they wondered why God kept humbling them and humbling them all the time.

And here's what he says. Moses said, David said, We need God's Word to sustain us. And so getting back to our passage, this hidden manna refers to the Word of God both written for us and spoken to us.

And the way we get this hidden manna is by overcoming sin in our lives and obeying God. Did you know that obedience is key to understanding the Word of God and receiving guidance from Him? In John chapter 7, Jesus is talking to the intelligentsia of His day, the scribes, the Pharisees, those that went through. They went through to seminary, not seminary.

They knew the law. They not only knew the 636 laws, they practiced them. And Jesus says to them this, in John 7, 17, In other words, you guys think you know it all.

But you're not even willing to do the will of God, which is honor me as the Savior of the world. It doesn't matter what you know. You know squat until you start obeying me.

Psalm 25, 14 says, Who are those who fear Him? They are the ones who obey Him. And when we obey God, He shares His secret to us. We read and we come to the Word of God every day and He speaks to our hearts and He tells us things that we had never heard before.

We come to Him in prayer and He says, this is the way we walk in it. Lord, should I marry this person? I'm going to make this clear to you. Lord, should I go to that school? I'm going to make it clear to you.

What about this career path? Lord, I'm going to make that clear to you. I will speak to you and if you're not hearing from me or not sure, I will send someone else to tell you because out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every matter be established. And unless we are obedient to God, unless we are living as overcomers of sin in our lives, the Bible will be to us a closed book.

It will be boring and dry as dust. Do you want the Scriptures to become alive to you? Then make sure there is no undelt sin in your life. Do you want to know the will of God with respect to decisions you have to make? Then be as obedient as you can be by God's grace and He will speak to you.

Verse 17, to him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. These people in the Church of Pergamum would immediately have figured out the picture that Jesus was giving here because it would bring to mind the Roman custom of awarding white stones to winners of athletic competitions.

These white stones had the name of the athletes inscribed on them and they became a ticket with which they could enter a prestigious awards banquet. And so the Lord promises to each one of us who are overcomers that He has a new name, perhaps the equivalent of a divine nickname awaiting us in heaven. I want to close with a question.

Is there a white stone with your name on it waiting for you in heaven? Let me ask that question another way. Have you ever with the Lord's help been an overcomer of sin in your life? The Bible says in 2nd Corinthians 5 17, if any man be in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.

This is what it means when Jesus said you must be born again. If the answer is no to any of these questions, then all of that can change today. The last words of Jesus to the seven churches is found in Revelation chapter 3 and in verse 20, Jesus says this to the church as the last words to be remembered ringing through the ages.

He said, Here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will eat with him and he with me. Is Jesus knocking on the door of your heart this morning? Is He right now speaking to you? Can you hear Him calling you to put aside your doubts, your fears, your living for yourself and for the pleasures of sin? Then believe God's word.

Believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, that He rose again on the third day to give you victory and freedom from sin and call upon the name of the Lord and He will save you and you will be called an overcomer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we humble ourselves before you.

Lord, this letter was not just for these seven churches, it was for us, for CCF here today. Lord, we thank you for how loving and patient and kind you are, how you withhold justice from us when we deserve punishment and yet because of your love and mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment, your word says, and you have given us mercy. And so, Heavenly Father, this morning I pray that by your spirit you would speak to our hearts and that we would rid ourselves of any idol that provokes the jealousy either in our hearts, as your word talks about, idols that provoke the jealousy in our hearts or in our homes or in our actions and thoughts and speech.

We pray, O Lord, we would rid ourselves of these because really, Lord, what does it matter? Even if we were to gain the whole world and lose our own souls, it doesn't matter. And so today, Lord, we acknowledge you are King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God above all gods. You are the Savior of this world to all who will put their faith and hope in you.

And we ask, Heavenly Father, that you would save any who do not know you. And for those of us who do, that we would continue to humble ourselves every day because without you we can do nothing. We need you to help us to continually be overcomers of sin, the flesh, the world, and the devil.

And so, Lord, we will do this by your grace for the honor and glory of your name. We will not take credit for it, for all glory, praise, and honor is due you, both now and forevermore. Amen.