Christ's Message to His Church: Pergamum Revelation 2:12-17

Eureka Baptist Church

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May 21, 2023

00:09: over the last two weeks, we have seen Jesus give an evaluation to two churches.
00:17: The church in Ephesus and the church in Smyrna. In both places, Jesus has said the words,
00:23: I know your works and I know your tribulation. What this tells us is that Jesus knows exactly what is going on in every church.
00:33: In the church in Ephesus, He knew that this church was sound doctrinally. They proclaimed sound doctrine and defended heresies from coming in.
00:45: But they made the great error of not loving the Lord. That's the whole point of learning the truth of Scripture.
00:51: To love the Lord. And they missed that. They lost their first love and Jesus told them to return to the love that they had at first.
01:01: Then Jesus addressed Smyrna. His address to Smyrna was different from the address that He made to Ephesus.
01:09: The address to Ephesus had correction in it. While the address to Smyrna was only positive.
01:17: This is not to say that Smyrna was perfect. They certainly were not. But they were a faithful church.
01:23: And one of the ways they showed their faithfulness was through enduring persecution. They had already endured persecution and they were about to endure more persecution down the road.
01:37: Jesus encouraged them by telling them that as they endured the persecution, proving their faithfulness, the
01:44: Lord Jesus would give them the crown of life. That is to say, by showing their true faith, they would show that they had eternal life now and would have eternal life with the
01:56: Lord when this life is over. In these two addresses,
02:02: Jesus had much to teach us as we strive to move to more and more health at this church.
02:10: Now, He has another word for us this morning as He addresses another church. The church in Pergamum.
02:16: So this time, I encourage you to turn to the place where we find Jesus addressed this church.
02:23: That is in Revelation 2 verses 12 -17. And if you do not have a
02:29: Bible, you may use one of the red Bibles in the pews. This sermon is once again titled
02:35: Christ's Message to His Church. And this edition is Pergamum.
02:43: And as we begin, I'm going to begin by reading the text. Revelation 2 verses 12 -17.
02:51: These are the words of the Lord Jesus. And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write the words of Him who has the sharp two -edged sword,
03:00: I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast
03:05: 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.
03:15: But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught
03:22: Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
03:32: So also you have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore, repent.
03:37: If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of My mouth.
03:44: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers,
03:50: I will give some of the hidden manna, 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."
04:01: Here's our big idea. What this text, what this sermon is calling each of you to do, what
04:08: He's calling our church to do. Understand that Jesus is troubled when a church does not follow
04:16: Him wholeheartedly. Jesus is troubled when a church does not follow Him wholeheartedly.
04:22: And as we go through this, we're going to see one reason why, and I'm going to reveal that reason at the very end. What we are about to see is that Jesus begins this address to the church in Pergamum in a similar way as He did to the first two churches.
04:37: We'll begin by zeroing in on verse 12. Where once again, Jesus says to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write the words of him who has the sharp two -edged sword.
04:48: So Jesus once again addresses the angel of the church. And once again, this is not a spirit being sent from heaven.
04:56: This is the pastor of the church in Pergamum. Angel means messenger.
05:03: And this pastor of the church in Pergamum had the task of passing the message from Jesus to the church that he pastored.
05:11: And as we look at each of these churches, it is interesting to learn about the cities in which these churches were located.
05:19: Pergamum was a city located not far inland off the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor.
05:27: The city is still around today, but by a different name. Bergama, located in modern -day
05:32: Turkey, that's the name of it. It functioned as the capital of the Roman province in Asia Minor for several centuries.
05:40: The word Pergamum means citadel. Citadel means high place.
05:46: The city was built on a high hill in the midst of a large plain where farming and planting was prosperous.
05:55: Like the two other cities we have looked at thus far, Pergamum was a center rampant with false religion.
06:02: And we shouldn't expect anything different in a world that the devil rules.
06:08: There's false religion everywhere. People worshipped the Greek god and Roman gods of Athena, Asclepius, that's a weird name,
06:19: Dionysius, and Zeus. The city also built a temple to Caesar, the
06:26: Roman emperor. So like we saw with Smyrna one week ago, emperor worship was popular.
06:34: As Jesus addresses the church of Pergamum, he once again introduces his addresses by saying something glorious concerning himself.
06:44: He says in the second half of verse 12, the words of him who has the sharp two -edged sword.
06:51: We have already seen Jesus use the terminology of the two -edged sword to describe himself.
06:56: In Revelation 1 .16, the apostle John described that from his mouth came a two -edged sword.
07:05: The two -edged sword coming out of Jesus' mouth symbolizes his power over his enemies.
07:12: With this description, what we see is the meekness of Jesus. The meekness.
07:19: A simple definition of meekness is power under control. Another way to say this is that one who is good uses his power to help people and not hurt them.
07:32: Power is a very dangerous thing if it's in the wrong hands.
07:38: But if it's in the right hands, it can be used to bless so many people.
07:44: And this is how Jesus uses his power. He uses the two -edged sword to bring his enemies under his judgment.
07:52: And that's something that all believers desire. This is the desire we should all have. God will judge his enemies.
08:01: Toward the end of the book of Revelation, in Revelation 19, the apostle John describes what the return of Christ will be like when he comes to this earth in power.
08:11: John describes that when Jesus comes to the earth, he will defeat his enemies. And he uses the same description that Jesus uses concerning himself in our verse.
08:21: In Revelation 19, the apostle John writes that at his return, from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.
08:32: He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. Then verse 16 says, on his robe and on his thigh, he has the name written,
08:44: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The sharp two -edged sword shows that Jesus has victory over his enemies.
08:55: Now as Jesus addresses each church, there is a reason that he leads with this description concerning himself.
09:03: The glorious description concerning himself ties in with what this church needs to hear.
09:11: We will see that as we go through the text. Now let's look at what Jesus specifically has to say to the church in Pergamum.
09:18: In verse 13, he says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.
09:27: Yet you hold fast 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.
09:38: So once again, Jesus starts off by saying that he knows about this church.
09:45: Once again, as I have said the last two Sundays, he knows because he's not only a man, he's God. He knows everything.
09:54: He is able to give a perfect evaluation of this church because he is
10:00: God. And as he addresses this church, we are going to see him address the positives and the negatives.
10:08: Two weeks ago, the church in Ephesus had positives and negatives. Last week, the church in Smyrna, Jesus addressed only the positive he addressed.
10:17: So it was largely a healthy church. And isn't that wonderful if Jesus comes to the church and says, you know what?
10:23: Largely speaking, you're doing very good. Keep up the good work. But that's not always the case when he addresses these churches.
10:30: And it's not the case with this church, the church in Pergamum. There's some positives, yes.
10:37: But there are also some glaring negatives as we will see. But he starts with the positive.
10:43: What Jesus is telling the church in Pergamum is that he knows the environment in which they live and carry out the ministry of the church in this environment is not a good one.
10:56: It's where evil abounds. As I have already mentioned, the city of Pergamum was a central place for false worship.
11:04: Through the worship of Roman gods and the emperor, what I said one week ago is that all false religions find their source in one.
11:13: Satan. Satan doesn't care what false god people worship.
11:20: He only desires that people are not worshiping the true God. One week ago, we saw that even the
11:27: Jews who did not believe in the Messiah were being ruled by Satan. They were close to the truth.
11:34: The Old Testament was their book. But their rejection of the Messiah meant that they were ultimately following the devil.
11:44: Sometimes the most dangerous false religions are those closest to the truth. This is so because it deceives many people.
11:52: People say that it is so close. Isn't it the same? But the truth is, the few differences in major areas make it a false gospel.
12:04: So Satan is okay with someone following any false religion as long as it is not the true religion.
12:13: Our missionary that we support, we support several missionaries, but one of the missionaries we support is
12:18: Trevor Rubenstein, who by the way was on Jan Markell's program this past week. He tells an interesting story about something similar to this.
12:29: Trevor is a former unbelieving Jew and one who is entrenched in the Jewish community now as a missionary, tells the story about how
12:37: Jewish leadership and Jewish parents are much more okay with ethnic
12:43: Jews being things like Buddhists or atheists rather than those who believe
12:49: Jesus is the Messiah. Isn't that interesting? What Trevor said is the greatest taboo in the
12:57: Jewish community are those who believe in Jesus. You also see this with secular atheists.
13:05: Secular atheists don't go after the God of Islam, for example. Who do they go after?
13:11: They go after the God of the Bible. Whether it is unbelieving Jews thinking their fellow
13:17: Jews following Jesus is the worst sin or atheists going after the God of the Bible, these have the same source and that source is
13:25: Satan. And this is a great apologetic for Christians. And by the way, curse words?
13:33: The curse words that people use? I mean, we come to church, right? And one time I heard a pastor say, he heard a guy swearing and he said
13:39: God, he said Jesus Christ, he said hell, you know, he said all these things and he turned around to the guy and he's offended.
13:45: He's like, I can't even get all those words into the sermon. And you just, and you just, you know, all these expletives you're saying.
13:53: I mean, there's a Christian comedian. He says, nobody says Buddha. No. They say
14:00: Jesus Christ, right? Why? Well, he's the one true God. Interesting.
14:08: So lots of things out there are considered okay, but one who follows
14:14: Jesus is considered taboo. It is obvious that the word of God is the truth. Satan hates the truth and he will spread all forms of falsehood to prevent
14:24: God's image bearers from pursuing the truth. And in the city of Pergamum, he had a stranglehold through the false religions that he invented there.
14:35: And the city was so engulfed with false religion that Jesus calls it Satan's throne.
14:43: In verse 13. Think of how many places in our world today where Jesus would also call them
14:49: Satan's throne. It's not just Sin City, Las Vegas. In our country, it's the mainstream media, the mainstream academia,
14:58: Hollywood, corporate America, the false religions in our country, and even false churches.
15:04: The first ones that I mentioned, you might wonder if those truly are false religions. The truth is they are because they are pushing forward a false worldview through the direction of Satan.
15:15: We may not technically call them false religions, but that's what they're doing. They're doing the same thing. There is an agenda, and that agenda is to lead people away from God.
15:27: But in our text, in the midst of this environment full of false religion, Jesus is pleased with some in this church in Pergamum because of their faithfulness as they are surrounded by this satanic activity.
15:43: Jesus notices when people are faithful in the midst of a very difficult environment. You know, and some of you go to work and you're surrounded by unbelievers and the
15:52: Lord just says, I'm so proud of you that you are faithful even in this difficult environment.
15:58: And we need to hear that word. What he tells them in verse 13 is that you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith.
16:08: Then Jesus gets specific in the remainder of verse 13 that they held fast his name even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells.
16:21: What Jesus is telling this church is that in the midst of being surrounded by these false religions and even facing persecution, some in the church endured the persecution.
16:32: These people were much like the church in Smyrna that endured persecution and Jesus praises them for that.
16:40: Once again, he is very pleased when his people endure opposition for his sake.
16:48: As Jesus highlights their persecution, he tells them something that everyone there would have known about.
16:54: And that is one man who lost his life because of his faithfulness to Jesus. And this man's name is
17:00: Antipas. It's interesting. It's the only mention of him in the Bible. But Jesus refers to him as my faithful witness.
17:10: Jesus loves those who live for him and die for him. My faithful witness, he calls
17:19: Antipas. Antipas was martyred in this satanic environment because of his faith in Jesus.
17:31: So who is Antipas? I mentioned he's not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, but he's similar to Polycarp.
17:38: One week ago, a pastor from Smyrna, we looked at Polycarp. He was martyred by the leaders of the false religion in Smyrna because of his faith in Christ.
17:47: In the same way, Antipas was a pastor in Pergamum and he was also martyred. A church history records that Antipas was burned inside a brass bull.
18:00: Jesus loves those who are persecuted for their faith and he loves those who are martyred for their faith.
18:06: And what Jesus calls those people are his faithful witnesses, as he calls
18:11: Antipas in verse 13. We want Jesus to say this about us. So this should be a big motivator.
18:19: Be faithful to him, no matter what. His opinion is the only one that matters. He's the judge of all the universe.
18:27: Be faithful to him and things will go well for you for all eternity. Think about how amazing that is.
18:36: What we see is that Satan is the one who is trying to stomp out this church in Pergamum.
18:43: So what does he do? He takes out the pastor. He goes after the leader thinking, that'll take care of it.
18:51: The pastor Antipas is doing wonderful things. He is preaching the word. He's shepherding his people.
18:57: The gospel is spreading. The church is growing. And Satan has lots of weapons in Pergamum.
19:05: Lots of tools at his disposal. This is an environment where evil abounds.
19:15: There are many false religions who are following him and he uses them to kill Antipas. What we know from scripture and what we know from church history is that when persecution comes upon the church, the gospel is not stomped out.
19:34: It spreads. And most certainly the Lord continued to spread the gospel in Pergamum, even though they face great persecution, even losing their pastor
19:44: Antipas. So Jesus is pleased as they endure this persecution through Satan's activity.
19:52: But then Jesus gets to the place where he addresses his deep concerns with this church.
20:00: Now once again, Jesus is using somewhat of a sandwich approach here. Okay, let's start with the positive.
20:06: Now I'm going to bring the criticism. Here's the correction that Pergamum receives, verse 14.
20:15: But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught
20:23: Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols, and practice sexual immorality.
20:34: So Jesus doesn't just have one issue with this church. He says, I have a few things against you.
20:42: And they're probably thinking, uh -oh, what's coming? What he has against them is that there are people among them who are not pure in their ways.
20:51: Specifically, they are not pure in that they say they are following the Lord. They are professing
20:57: Christians. But they are actually following other gods. There's a belief out there, it's interesting.
21:06: Theism is the belief that everything is created by one god. A polytheism is that there are many gods.
21:14: There's a belief out there, it's called henotheism. You've probably never heard this before. Henotheism.
21:21: What this teaches is that a people has a preferred god, but they worship other gods as well.
21:30: I remember my professor in seminary describing this and then saying, this describes many
21:35: Americans. They prefer the God of the Bible, but alongside him, they are worshiping other gods.
21:44: What Jesus brings up is a name that is familiar to Bible students, and that name is
21:50: Balaam. The story of Balaam is found in Numbers 22 through 24.
21:56: This is the story where the donkey speaks. We should all be thankful that our pets can't talk back to us, right?
22:04: But in this story, the donkey speaks to him. But what
22:09: Jesus is getting after is that Balaam was a pagan prophet, which means that God can use a pagan to deliver his message.
22:16: He did with Balaam. And as a pagan prophet, Balaam showed his desire to have
22:22: Israel cursed so that he could gain material wealth for himself. The king of Moab, Balak, said, curse them and I'll give you money.
22:35: So this attempt failed as the Lord told him numerous times that Israel was to be blessed, not cursed.
22:41: So then Balaam tried to get Moabite women to seduce Israelite men into intermarriage, to bring a curse upon Israel to get him the material wealth he wanted.
22:53: Some of the people of Israel listened to Balaam. And what came about through this was fornication, intermarriage, and the adoption of idolatrous feasts practiced by the
23:04: Moabites. And what Jesus is communicating is that this church was doing something similar as Balaam.
23:12: They were worshiping idols and practicing sexual immorality, just as the ancient Israelites did under Balaam's influence.
23:21: Out of one side of their mouth, some of the people of Pergamum would say that they were following the
23:26: Lord Jesus. But out of the other side of their mouth, they were living in sin as they worshiped idols and practiced sexual immorality.
23:36: They also followed a similar group that did many of the same things. This is a group we've already heard about, the
23:42: Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans were a problem in the church in Ephesus. We saw this two Sundays ago.
23:50: And what was the problem with the Nicolaitans? They were people who used grace abusively as a license to sin.
23:59: Oh, God's given us grace. We can do whatever we want. So whether it was the teaching of Balaam or the teaching of the
24:06: Nicolaitans, it was the same deal. Let's just live this sinful lifestyle while we say that we follow
24:12: Jesus. And what Jesus says is that some of them are practicing this teaching within the church in Pergamum.
24:24: And the key word here is some. Not everyone in this church had their hearts divided.
24:31: As Jesus says in verse 14, you have some there who hold to these teachings, but Jesus will not tolerate this flagrant sin in their midst.
24:40: Scripture describes God as a jealous God. As the second commandment informs us in Exodus 20 verses five and six, you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the
24:52: Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
25:08: When we think of jealousy, we obviously have a negative connotation with it. Jealousy is when you want for yourself something that belongs to another.
25:17: But for God, jealousy is appropriate. He is jealous when humans worship anyone other than Him, and He is rightfully jealous.
25:29: This is so because He is the only one worthy of worship. No one else is worthy.
25:37: When He sees people worshiping a false God or worshiping something in creation,
25:44: He's rightfully angry. What our text is describing is when people claim to follow
25:53: Him, but their worship is really directed somewhere else.
25:59: Once again, this is henotheism. You say you are worshiping the
26:04: Lord, but really the worship is directed toward a false God. This was a major problem with the church in Pergamum.
26:13: They were surrounded by idols at every corner, and these idols made their way into the church.
26:20: In each sermon, I am mentioning the period of church history that this historical church predominantly describes.
26:28: When some theologians look at these churches, they think it's not only addressing a historical church, but actually a time period.
26:34: It's predicting a time period in church history. And the period of church history that was like the church in Pergamum is known as the
26:42: Church of the Age of Constantine from 313 A .D. to 600.
26:49: Once the Roman Empire became Christianized after Constantine, the churches there had some soundness, but were greatly influenced by the surrounding culture.
27:02: Does this sound familiar in our country? How common it is that what society worships creeps its way into the church.
27:14: When I was growing up, this was seen in the seeker -sensitive movement that was more focused on entertaining the attendees than true worship of God.
27:24: The whole goal of this was, let's get as many people in the door as we can. So let's give them what they want.
27:31: They want a coffee shop? We'll give them a coffee shop. They want a smoke machine? We'll give them a smoke machine.
27:37: They want a rock band? We'll give them a rock band. They want theater seating? We'll give them theater seating. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
27:47: That was the seeker -sensitive movement. The seeker -sensitive movement, it's called seeker -sensitive because we also will not talk about things that they will be offended by.
27:54: So we can only talk about surface -level things. Okay, does this book tell us to lead the church that way? No, not even close.
28:02: But they were influenced by the surrounding culture. It's this business model. Let's get as many people in the door as we can.
28:08: Let's try to be like the world in order to win the world. And this is not something that was just something when
28:18: I was growing up. This is still going on today, the seeker -sensitive movement. More recently though, we have seen the church become like the culture through the social justice movement.
28:33: And I've explained this before at our church, but I'll explain it briefly here. Social justice is built on an oppressor, oppressed model where people view the world through this lens.
28:45: In our country, white people are automatically guilty, automatically the oppressor, while minorities are automatically the oppressed.
28:54: It is not built on offenses actually committed to identify who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed.
29:01: It is based on this Marxist worldview. Yet this has made its way very much into the mainstream
29:07: American church over the last several years. It is a poison that has spread just about everywhere.
29:17: And so in a place like this that is predominantly white, we would be guilty because we're not diverse enough.
29:22: I mean, this is how the world thinks. This is the worldly thinking. If you go to China, they're not dealing with these things because Chinese Christians are like, we're
29:33: Chinese. We're going to have a Chinese church. But you come to America, everything has to be diverse.
29:39: It's called equity, diversity, inclusion. And we see that everywhere.
29:45: And what's so sad about this is that foolish Christian leaders, what they have done is they have taken the justice passages in the
29:53: Bible and used this worldly way of understanding justice and then making the
29:59: Bible say something that it does not say. Justice according to Scripture and according to natural law is equality before the law.
30:10: What this means is that justice is blind. If one is guilty, then he or she is guilty.
30:17: If one is innocent, then he or she is innocent. You are not guilty just because of your skin color.
30:23: You are guilty if you truly commit a crime. What we have seen in the
30:28: American Evangelical Church in many places is Christian leaders calling white people to repent every time a supposed racist act takes place.
30:39: And what these Christian leaders are doing, knowingly or not, is taking a false religion and imposing it on the
30:45: Scriptures and on the church. And to see the compromise has been troubling. What we have seen through this is how much the wider church is influenced by the world.
30:58: So anything that poisons the purity of a biblical church must be dealt with.
31:05: Jesus is telling the church in Pergamum this and He's telling every one of us this as well.
31:13: We need to understand this in our personal lives also. Our competition with Jesus might also be our favorite sport or the latest fashion.
31:24: Every one of you knows yourself and what might compete with the Lord. He must be the sole focus of our worship.
31:34: Jesus calls Christians with their hearts divided and churches with their hearts divided to come clean.
31:43: As He says in verse 16, "'Therefore, repent. "'If not,
31:49: I will come to you soon "'and war against them with the sword of My mouth.'" At the beginning of verse 16, you will notice that Jesus is calling the entire church to repent.
32:00: Then He says, if they don't repent, He will take those practicing these things out with the sword of My mouth.
32:10: Now we see why Jesus said the sharp two -edged sword in His introduction to this church in verse 12.
32:18: There I said that Jesus uses His power to destroy, to destroy
32:24: His enemies. And what Jesus is telling Pergamum is that if you don't deal with these people with divided hearts, then guess what?
32:33: I'm gonna deal with them. He tells them that He will war against them with the sword of My mouth.
32:42: Jesus is not only angry at those who are practicing this idolatry while professing faith in Christ, He is also angry at those who are tolerating this within their presence, within their church.
32:59: The idolaters need to repent for their idolatry while the rest of the church, especially the leadership, needs to repent for their passivity.
33:09: We need to understand this about sin. There are active sins and there are passive.
33:17: James 4 .17 describes the sin of passivity. Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin.
33:30: So what is the right thing to do for the church in Pergamum? The right thing to do is to deal with these idolaters.
33:40: These people are polluting the church with poison. Out of one side of their mouth, they are proclaiming
33:48: Christ, but out of the other side, they are denying Him. How often do you see people sign a statement of faith saying they believe the truths of Christianity, but they don't really believe what they are signing.
34:04: No wonder so many churches and Christian institutions are compromised. They have people who profess
34:11: Christ who are actually wolves and goats. Churches and Christian organizations are populated with false leaders and false sheep.
34:23: You will hear them say that they believe the gospel, but then you hear or see through their actions where their true devotion lies.
34:34: Christ is calling His church to repent for tolerating the filth and then to rid the church of the filth, earlier
34:43: I mentioned the social justice movement. Many so -called Christian leaders are strong against social justice until it gets to the specifics.
34:54: If you ask just about any Christian leader, are you against the woke stuff? Most of them will say, yeah,
34:59: I'm against that. But then you start saying, well, where is this? Who? What?
35:05: Where? Why? Let's start asking specific questions. Where is this? That's why
35:10: I love enemies within the church. Enemies within the church actually names the people, names the institutions.
35:17: And they got a lot of flack for that. But they're actually saying this is where it is happening. They are doing what
35:23: Jesus tells Christians to do. They are exposing the falsehood. They are exposing the poison.
35:32: But in our climate, you get in trouble for that. When it comes to the specifics, very few do what
35:39: Jesus is calling for right here. I'm not saying this, Jesus is saying this.
35:47: Very few call them to repentance. Very few call them to be removed. The truth is, once you start getting specific about where false teaching is taking place, you will be called unloving and decisive for calling it out.
36:04: But to be obedient to Christ, it must be done. A few weeks from now,
36:11: I'm going to a conference down in the Madison area. And I'm gonna drive four hours to a one -day conference.
36:19: And you know why I'm going there? Because there's a guy there who stood up to poison in a seminary, and he got fired for it.
36:27: And he's one of the speakers. I'm not gonna pay $200 to go watch a bunch of compromised leaders at a conference in Minneapolis.
36:35: I'm gonna drive four hours to a church where there might be maybe 100 or 200 people there.
36:44: It's a free conference, by the way, which is great. But I'm going there because these are the kind of people I want to listen to. Because this is the kind of person whose heart is not divided.
36:55: He has my respect. These are the kind of people we want to listen to. In this case, with Pergamum, Jesus is calling for church discipline.
37:09: These people brought these false teachings and this false way of living into the church, and they must be dealt with.
37:16: If the church did not deal with them, Jesus was going to bring his own judgment upon them. How much greater the pain and damage would be for this church if the discipline did not happen, but Christ dealt them a huge blow?
37:31: Churches that do not deal with the problems in their midst will have these problems fester over a long period of time.
37:39: When there is serious sin, it needs to be dealt with. The goal of every church must be health, not growth at all costs.
37:49: The goal of every church must be health. And by the way, healthy churches tend to grow. They do. But that's not the ultimate goal.
37:57: The ultimate goal is health. To be pleasing to the Lord. That when
38:02: He looks upon your church, He says, they're not perfect, but largely speaking, they're doing what
38:09: I'm telling them to do. You can't have sound doctrine and false doctrine in the same place for a church to be healthy.
38:21: What will happen is the true work of God will be greatly hindered as it is choked up by the false teaching.
38:27: And what will happen is the course is not changed. If the course is not changed, then at some point, the falsehood will completely stomp out the truth and the church would become officially
38:39: Satan's throne, just like the society around it. No church ever wants this.
38:47: Pursue health at all times, and you will experience the Lord's blessing. Now Jesus once again closes with the call to listen very closely to what
38:56: He's saying. He says this in v. 17. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
39:02: To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna. 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.
39:12: So Jesus calls for Pergamum and every church, including Eureka Baptist, to be on the conquering side.
39:21: You conquer by keeping idolatry out of your church. We need to do that individually, and we need to do that as a church.
39:30: Then Jesus says something very interesting. He says to the one who conquers, he will give hidden manna.
39:36: The hidden manna is Jesus, as John 6 .35 says. There Jesus calls
39:41: Himself the bread of life. Those who come to Him will never go hungry, but are spiritually satisfied forever.
39:49: Then Jesus says those who conquer, He will give them a white stone. The white stone in ancient times was given to an athlete who achieved victory.
39:58: The stone was given as admission into the dinner celebration afterward. In the same way, believers will be admitted to sit at the table with Jesus at the grand celebration in heaven.
40:11: Lastly, Jesus says something very interesting. That belongs to those who conquer. On this white stone,
40:19: Jesus will give a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
40:26: So there are two possibilities to the new name that Jesus gives to each of His followers that no one knows except the one who receives it.
40:34: One possibility is that it symbolizes the reality of the new experience the believer has in Christ.
40:41: In other words, unbelievers don't know what it's like to be a believer. Because when you're a believer, you become a new creation in Christ.
40:51: So in that way, you have a new name. The other possibility is that the new name may be a personal message that every believer receives from the
41:00: Lord Jesus when he or she receives admission into heaven. Wouldn't that be interesting? This is a reminder, by the way.
41:08: Jesus is not just a corporate people. He loves each of us individually. He knows you personally.
41:18: If you sit at the table with Him, He's gonna know things about you. In fact, He's gonna know everything about you. And He's gonna ask you questions.
41:25: And you're gonna be able to have that conversation with Him. He knows you personally. I mean, we know those people who are high up and they might be a
41:33: CEO of a business and they would never talk to the average employee in their company, right? They're just too big for that.
41:39: But then you have those people who are high up, who are down to earth, who will talk to anybody, who treat everybody with respect and give them the time of day.
41:50: And the person feels valuable. That's what Jesus is like. He loves
41:55: His people in that way. And we need to be reminded of that. It's amazing. But what we need to see here is that glory awaits the one and the churches that walk in purity and keep
42:10: Satan's agenda out. Understand that Jesus is troubled when a church does not follow
42:17: Him wholeheartedly. Again, that's our big idea. Understand that Jesus is troubled when a church does not follow
42:24: Him wholeheartedly. And He was troubled by this church, the church in Pergamum. And in this text, we have seen one reason why
42:32: He's so troubled. That reason is that the church content leaving the cancer greatly hinders the health of the body.
42:42: You cannot have a healthy church if you leave the poison in there. If you tolerate idols, if you tolerate false teaching, if you tolerate false living, you cannot be healthy.
42:56: So may Eureka Baptist be defined as a church that holds fast to Christ's name and keeps the poison of Satan and the world out.
43:09: Now next Sunday, we will once again hear Jesus address another church, the church in Thyatira.
43:15: And once again, He has an important message for us to hear. But at this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.
43:30: Father in heaven, help us to listen closely to these words. We need to take this very seriously.
43:39: No church is immune from poison entering it where it can really hinder the health of the church.
43:45: And so we always need to be on our guard. Always need to watch out. Lord, it is our desire to be a church that is pleasing in your sight.
43:54: We know, Lord, that we will not be perfect. We can't this side of glory. But help this church to be pure and to be pure in this way as we learn today.
44:07: And help us each to do our part individually to bring that about.
44:14: So Lord, strengthen us today with this word. And I ask this in Jesus' name, amen.