If there was a church that the
world could love it was the church at Pergamum. But, is the Church supposed to
seek the world's love? To do that the Church has to become like the world. As
we see in Revelation 2:12-17 this church was commendable for certain things.
However, it was a church that became like the world to be liked by the world.
The resulting rebuke from Jesus Christ reminds us of James 4:4,
"friendship with the world is hatred towards God. Anyone who chooses to be
a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." Strong words that should
cause each of us to heed the words of "Him who has the sharp, double-edged
sword."
#1:
Armed and Dangerous (12)
Jesus is Armed and Dangerous. In verse 12 Jesus presents Himself to the
believers in Pergamum and don’t miss what He says, “These are the words of Him who
has the sharp, double-edged sword.”
A sword is a weapon. Jesus is
armed with a sword and I kid you not He will use it. This sword was mentioned in 1:16, “In
his right hand he held 7 stars and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged
sword...” This sword is said to
come out of His mouth. The same thing is
said again in Revelation 19:15, “Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with
which to strike down the nations.”
We are not talking about a physical sword that comes out of Jesus mouth
like you would see with a sword swallower in a circus act. His sword is His word. The sword is a symbolic way of referring to
His words, the words that come from His mouth.
The Bible refers to God’s word a sword many times. Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and
active, sharper than a two-edged sword…” Ephesians 6:17 says, “Take up the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God.”
Isaiah 49:2 says, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword…” So when He presents Himself to the church at
Pergamum, they are to see that He is the one whose words are a crushing arsenal
against the enemy. His words are a
fierce weapon which have divine power.
Why does He start this way with
them? Because Pergamum had been
tolerating false teaching that led to sinful behavior, and the problem could
only be solved by God’s Word. This was a
church that needed to learn from the Ephesian Church, who had done so well
handling the sword of God’s Word (2:2).
False teaching had no place there, but Pergamum had let it run rampant,
and the results were scandalous. Starting
right away they were to pick up the sword of the word of God and cut out those
false doctrines going around.
It
is not a strange and fringe activity of the church to be doing battle with the
sword of truth. It is normal church
life, defending the truth and cutting down the enemies lies. Second Corinthians 10:3-5 says, “For
though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons
of the world. On the contrary, they have
divine power to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments and
every pretense that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take
captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” Titus 1:9 says that church leaders should “hold
firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught [God’s Word], so that
they can encourage others by sound doctrine [God’s Word] and refute those
who oppose it.”
When Jesus comes to a Church armed
with His sword there is going to be war.
This church needed to start warring with the worldly proponents of these
false teachings and cut them down with God’s Word, demolishing their arguments,
and keep the truth upheld in their church.
The only weapon against worldliness is the word of God.
#2:
The Allegiance of Antipas and Others (13)
After presenting Himself, Jesus
commends them. This church was to be
recognized for their Allegiance to Jesus Christ. One man, Antipas is mentioned for His
allegiance even unto death, but credit is given to the whole church for their
allegiance to Jesus Christ. Notice with me verse 13, “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 was put
to death in your city – where Satan lives.”
The
believers at Pergamum deserve some serious credit. They live in the very city where Satan had lived
and had established his throne. We often
attribute evil and hardship coming into our lives to Satan. But in reality probably none of us have ever
encountered Satan or his work personally.
I’ve
read some suggestions as to what this may mean, but, it seems pretty simple to
understand this as it is written: Satan
lived in Pergamum. That’s not too hard
to understand seeing as how Satan can only be in one place at a time. He is not omnipresent like God.
I want us to see something right
here in this point. When it came down to
it, these were believers who would not be intimidated by anyone or anything
into denying the name of Jesus Christ.
Satan could not destroy this Church from the outside. So, as we are going to see next, he set out
to destroy this church from the inside.
#3:
The Sins Jesus Christ Attacks (14-16)
Now we are going to see the Sins
that Jesus Christ Attacks. Notice verses
14-16 with me, “…………..”
We
have just seen in the previous point that Satan could not persecute the Church
out of existence. So, when Satan fails
to do that, what does he resort to doing?
If crushing the Church doesn’t work, he works at corrupting it. Satan loves to pollute the pure and defile the
clean. Outward pressure only purifies the Church, whereas, polluting it from
the inside is an extremely effective means of defeating the Church. How did he pollute the Church? Well, Satan used false teachers to promote
certain sins. Let us now look at 2
groups of false teachers in Pergamum, and the 2 kinds of sin they
promoted.
The
First group of false teachers were Balaamites.
Verse 14 says, “you have people there who hold to the
teachings of Balaam…” Who is
Balaam? Well, it wasn’t someone’s name
in Pergamum, it was the name of an ancient prophet of God found back in Numbers
22-24. Balaam was hired out by one of Israel’s enemies, the Moabite king Balak,
to curse Israel. But when Balaam went
out to curse Israel God only allowed him to bless Israel. This infuriated King Balak. So what happened? Since Balaam couldn’t curse God’s people, and
Balak could not defeat Israel’s army, Balaam advised Balak that the best way to
beat Israel would be to corrupt them from the inside. Balaam’s advice was “If you can’t strike them down from the outside with your army, Balak,
then get God to strike them down by leading them into sin.”
What
sins did Balak lead Israel into? Well
Jesus says so in verse 14. It says that
Balak “enticed the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and
committing sexual immorality.”
He got them to sin by idolatry and immorality. One sin had to do with mixing their worship
with false gods and the other sin had to do with mixing their bodies up with
sexual sin.
This
was the problem in Israel and it was the problem in Pergamum. Satan could not destroy the church there,
but, he was succeeding in defiling it.
When Satan is making inroads into the church it will show up in 2
ways: false teachings will be on the rise
and sexual immorality will be more acceptable.
These are the signs of worldliness, and of the work of the great
deceiver.
But
the Church needs to maintain purity both in its teaching and its behavior. Second Corinthians 7:1 says, “
#4:
After our Faithfulness (v17)
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