The Book Of Revelation (part 2)

Okay, we continue with our study of Revelation this morning. This is the second in what is probably going to be now six to eight lessons on Revelation since I've already discovered that there's no way you can do

Revelation in four. I don't know why I thought that in the first place. I should have known better.

By way of a very quick review, we want to look at the book of Revelation.

It is one of those books that tends to be ignored, sort of like the book of Leviticus or something like that.

And yet, the Bible tells us of itself that, you know, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and all scripture is profitable.

And for doctrine and reproof and correction and instruction and righteousness, and therefore, Revelation also is part of that all scripture that is given for our profit.

Revelation, the very name means to reveal. Revelation is often looked at as something that's hidden and it's arcane and who can possibly understand that, and so therefore, we'll just ignore it.

But the whole purpose of a revelation is to reveal something, is to open things up to us.

And so, as we begin to look at this book, and we're, again, even with eight sessions, it's going to be a very superficial touching the high points look this time because you can spend years literally studying this book.

But the whole subject, the whole theme of Revelation is to present

God and to present Jesus Christ in his glory. When we get to Revelation, we don't have

Christ the suffering servant anymore. We don't have Christ in his humility anymore.

Every vision that we see of Christ in Revelation is of him in his glorified body as he comes to reign and to set things right.

And all of the things that, you know, that have been put off throughout all of human history are now going to be corrected.

And as we said last time, and again, by way of review, that we're going to see

Christ's ultimate triumph over Satan, and we're going to see the destiny of both

God's heavenly people, the church, and God's earthly people, Israel. And we're going to see the details of the climactic battle where, you know, the forces of good and the forces of evil will come together and Jesus shall reign.

And we're going to see the final disposition of things, the final disposition of unbelievers, the final disposition of believers, if you will, and the final disposition of Satan and the fallen angels, and also what's going to happen to the earth and the physical universe.

All of these things are set forth for us in the book of Revelation. And so, this is an incredible thing that John has been told to write.

And he's had this great vision or a series of visions. And one of the commands he gets is in verse 19 of chapter 1.

It says, write the things which thou hast seen and the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter, past, present, and future,

John. You're going to take care of all three of those. The mystery of the seven stars because he's outlined this vision of the risen

Christ that he's seen. And he's already reeling, you know, and he's not even started yet, you know, but he's already reeling from the things that he's seen.

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which thou sawest are the seven churches.

And so, these first two chapters, the next two chapters, chapters 2, chapter 3,

John is going to be writing about the things which are, that these are God's message to the churches of Asia Minor.

Now, these are seven real churches. They really exist. The angel, little a there in the

King James, the angel of the church is the leader of that church, whether you call him the pastor or the elder or whatever.

But the person that is leading in that church is who is being addressed. And so, this is what

God's message is to these seven physical churches that really exist, they really have members, they're still there or that they're really there.

In fact, to this day, some of them still exist, others don't.

And so, that's the primary thrust of this message is to these seven physical churches.

But each one of these churches has certain characteristics and each one of these churches represent, if you will, a certain type of Christian.

And you find the serving Christians, you find the worldly Christians, you find the lukewarm

Christians, and there's quotes around that. You find all of these types of individuals in every church, in every assembly.

And this also speaks of seven church ages which are coming, one after the other.

That take us from the church at its very beginnings all the way down to the final apostate state.

And some of us think that we're getting pretty close to that now. So anyway, the seven churches of these, there's the church at Ephesus, which is a solid church.

That's the solid church, but it's got a problem. It's lost its first love. It doesn't have that eager fire that a brand -new

Christian has when he doesn't know anything except that Jesus Christ died for him and has changed his life.

And that's the only thing he knows, but he's going to tell everybody that he can stop about that. And then there's the church at Smyrna, which is the suffering church.

And there's the church at Pergamum, which is the worldly church, and the church at Thyatira, which is the tolerant church.

That is the church that's tolerant of sin. And then we have the church at Sardis, which is the dead church but still has a small remnant.

There's a few people in this church even though it's fundamentally dead. And then there's the church at Philadelphia, which is the church that we would all like to be like, the faithful church, the serving church, the church that's doctrinally sound but they've got their act together, they're getting it done.

And then there's the church at Laodicea, which is the lukewarm church or the apostate church, if you will, the church that has a name but everything they think about themselves is wrong.

They think they're rich, they think they're prosperous, they think they're clothed, and all of these things.

And Jesus says, no, you're blind and you're naked and you're poor. Now, it'll take us a while to get to that.

We're going to spend at least two sessions on the churches, on God's message to the churches.

And there's this Sunday, next Sunday I will not be here and so it'll be two Sundays before we get to the final session in this particular segment of Revelation.

But for each one of the churches, we're going to look briefly at, first of all, there's a correspondent who is writing to this church.

You say, well, it's Jesus. That's true. It's always Jesus but he reveals certain aspects or emphasizes certain aspects of his persona at each one of these times.

He emphasizes something about himself at each one of these messages. But every time when he starts off to write one of these messages, he says the same thing.

He says, I know. I'm the one who knows. I'm the one who knows how it really is, not how it appears.

I'm the one who knows how it really is, not the way you think it is. And so, we're going to look at the correspondent.

We'll look something at the church because a lot of these churches, we don't know much about. A few of them, we have considerable details but most of them, we really don't know much about them.

We assume, dangerous as that can be on occasion, we assume that most of these churches are probably outgrowths of Paul's ministry at Ephesus.

Paul was at Ephesus for about three years. And so, it stands to reason that while he was doing that and people were getting converted and the church was growing and all of that, that they would plant daughter churches in various places.

And several of these churches probably came from that. Although, we cannot prove that, we certainly cannot show that out of the scripture.

It's just a reasonable assumption that we make. But we'll look at that. We'll look at the cities because some of these churches were heavily affected by where they were and what the city that they were in was like, as are we.

Every church reflects to a certain extent the culture and the society in which it exists.

And so, we'll look at that. For most of the churches, there is a commendation.

There's something good about this church, some more than others. But most of the time, the correspondent has some good things to say.

There's one exception to that. And most of the time, there is also a concern or a condemnation, if you will.

There's a problem that needs to be addressed. And you'll find that also six out of seven times.

One of the churches has no commendation. One of the churches has no condemnation.

The other five all have both. And then there's a command given to each one of these churches.

And then there's a counsel given to each one of these churches. And so, we'll look at these things as we go along.

So, starting off with church number one, the church at Ephesus, chapter two, verse one.

Under the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

Now, this is Jesus describing himself and giving emphasis to his authority over the whole church.

The seven stars, the seven stars are the leadership of these seven churches. He also refers to the churches themselves as lampstands.

If you remember back in chapter one, John had a vision of the risen

Christ walking among seven lampstands.

He was walking among these and he had in his hand seven stars. And John goes in considerable detail to describe what

Jesus looks like and all of these aspects of him. And so here, in this particular one, he is looking...he

is emphasizing his authority over the church. This is his church that he's writing to. And so, he's referring to the leadership of those churches.

And he's walking among those churches, he says. He's examining, he's assessing, he's evaluating.

He's the sovereign ruler over the churches. And he's the sovereign ruler over his church universal.

And so, when we look at this church here, you know,

I can tell you the elders have a constant... it's constantly before us that we are responsible to Jesus Christ.

It's not that we're out there running in a vacuum. The Bible says, you know, to the individual members in the church, you know, you are to obey the leadership that's been placed over you.

Well, who does that leadership answer to? We answer to Jesus. We are responsible, we are going to answer to him at some day for you, for your spiritual maturity.

Now, what did we do to try to build you up and to edify you and to mature you in the faith?

You know, we will be held to account and that's a serious matter. I've made the remark one time that, you know, anybody who was ever put up for elder and didn't get it, if you don't feel a certain amount of relief at that, you don't really understand what the office was that you were being proposed for.

Anyway, that's just an aside. That's not really part of the lesson here. And so, here's

Jesus walking among the lampstands and he's emphasizing his authority over the church. And so, what about this church?

Well, first of all, we know that this church was founded by Paul for sure. Paul ministered there for three years.

He left Timothy behind as the pastor of the church when he left. Priscilla and Aquila were involved with the

Ephesus Church and they're mentioned in Scripture. They were a couple that were spiritually mature and knew sound doctrine and were able to encourage and build up because a man named

Apollos came and was preaching there. And Apollos was a great orator.

He had all the speaking skills that Paul didn't have. And, but he wasn't quite on track.

And so, what happened was very appropriately Priscilla and Aquila are able to take him aside.

And as the Bible says, they explained to him a better way of not using your blackberry.

I'll turn that off there and get rid of the interference. So, Apollos was there.

The church was pastored by Timothy, as we said. And this church is known for several things.

First of all, it was a growing church. It was a vital church. It was part of the community. And Ephesus was known for its temple to Diana.

It was known throughout the entire Asia Minor for this great temple to Diana that was located there.

And this was a major source of business because what they did was they were making silversmiths were there and making all these little statues of Diana and the worship of Diana was a big deal.

And so, here's this church, this upstart new religion from their point of view starting up.

And it's beginning to cut into business. And this is bad. And so, riots actually occurred in Ephesus.

People got arrested and all that sort of thing. And so, the church was bad for business.

And so, naturally, they were persecuted. And something like 40 years has gone by from the founding of the church at Ephesus to when

John is actually sitting down to write Revelation. And so, as we said, Ephesus is a very important city in Asia Minor.

It's probably the most important city. It's not the capital, but it's certainly the financial center.

There's perhaps as many as 500 ,000 people there. So, it's a huge city for the day.

And it's a good -sized city even today. It was what they called a free city.

There were no Roman troops garrisoned there. It was allowed to govern itself. There was major roads crossed there.

And as I've already said, Diana was worshipped there. And the church got in trouble because it was bad for business.

And so, John goes on. What's the commendation? Well, he says, I know thy works.

And again, he emphasizes, I know. I'm the one who knows. Now, verse 2 of chapter 2,

I know thy works, thy labor, and thy patience. Thou canst not bear them who are evil, and thou hast tried them who say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience for my namesake.

You've labored, and you have not fainted. So, this is a church with a lot of good stuff.

There's a lot of good things about the church at Ephesus. First of all, he says,

I know about your toil. And the word there refers to hard work that produces sweat.

You know, you guys work hard, John says, in the service of Jesus Christ.

You know, you're a hardworking church, and you have perseverance.

You have great patience in hard circumstances. It took a certain amount of guts to be a member of the church at Ephesus because, again, you know, the church is bad for business.

And so, therefore, you know, if you're a member there, you're going to be looked down on in your community. So, you guys persevere, you hang in, you stay there, you remain under, the

Greek says, the stress that you're placed under.

And you're intolerant of evil. Now, that's a switch from today, isn't it?

Here's a church, they're being commended because they're intolerant. Today, you know, to be tolerant, you must be tolerant, right?

You know, and one of the worst things you can say about somebody is that they're intolerant. Well, here is the

Holy Spirit working through John, commending Ephesus because they're intolerant. They're intolerant of sin.

They're intolerant of evil men. And we don't know the details that they're talking about, but apparently, people were showing up.

And don't forget, now, the church, almost from the get -go, there's always been someone out there countering sound doctrine.

A great deal of the New Testament, don't forget, has been written to counter false doctrine already.

You know, within that first 50 to 100 -year period, already, the

Gnostic heresies were starting to come up and all of these various things where things were being challenged.

And so, obviously, somebody shows up in Ephesus and saying, oh, I'm, you know,

Paul's been here, he's an apostle, I'm an apostle too. And the folks at Ephesus are being commended because they're saying, oh, yeah?

Well, let's check it out. You know, tell us about this, tell us about that. What do you think about the deity of Christ?

Tell us about the substitutionary atonement, you know, and all of these things. They're checking out these people.

And the ones that don't measure up, they don't tolerate them. It's not like, well, let's bring them in, you know, and maybe they'll be affected by being around us.

Oh, no. If you preach a false gospel, you're out. You're not allowed to stay.

And so, these people, they jealously guard sound doctrine.

They take careful care of it. They test false teachers. They're on guard.

They're not willing to accept just because somebody shows up and says, you know, that, you know,

I went to the Jerusalem seminary or I went here,

I went there, you know, I graduated from here, you know, they want to check them out. And they reject heresy.

Specifically, it mentions the deeds of the Nicolaitans, and we're not quite sure what that is. But it's obviously some kind of early heresy that was already popping up, probably tied to Gnosticism.

And, you know, Gnosticism is still with us. Just as an aside, if you're interested at all of these, you hear all these things about the

Templars are very big now, all of a sudden, we're starting to come up with, and, you know, other books that, you know, were kept out of the scripture.

Well, they were kept out of the Bible for good reason. But these are the old

Gnostic heresies being revisited. No, nothing's new. And so, the point is the

Ephesus Church has got a lot. Yes, Daniel. Well, that's certainly possible because, well, for one thing, we do know that the

Judaizers, what Paul called the Judaizers, and Peter had some problems with them as well, would show up and start to combine.

They were saying, you know, we have to combine aspects of Judaism with Christianity. And so, all of these things were already starting to show up.

That there was only a very short period of time, if it ever existed, where, you know, all the sweetness and light and everybody was going down the same road.

There's always somebody that wants to veer off. And so, the church is sound.

A lot of good things in Ephesus. They have sound doctrine. They guard the truth.

But, he says, I have something against you. You've left your first love.

You've left your first love. And what are they doing? They're carrying out their responsibilities.

They have all the right motions. They function when they're supposed to function.

Everything that, all of the outward aspects are there. But they're going through them by rote.

They're going through them by rote. They've lost that, the flame of the first love.

And Jesus comments about that to them. Verse four, nevertheless,

I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast lost thy first love. Remember the first love of Christ.

You remember when you were first saved? Particularly those of you who are relatively new Christians. How overwhelmed you were by that.

But after a while, it becomes routine. It's kind of like, you know, when you first met guys.

When you first met the woman that you were going to marry. You know, man, you were just completely wrapped up in her.

Everything about her, you know, you talked about her all the time. Your friends got tired of hearing about it.

And, you know, on and on and on. And yet, after you get married, things sort of become routine.

Don't they? Same thing for you ladies. You know, things become routine.

In your life. Well, that's one of the things that John is saying. And the

Holy Spirit is saying to the church at Ephesus. Things have, you've let things become routine.

You know, your routines are right. You're doing the right things. But, you know, it's just become the things you do.

You're just going through the motions. You become blasé, if you will, towards the things of God.

You're no longer thrilled by the pieces of Scripture that you read. It's just, okay, we got to read another piece of Scripture this morning.

And, okay, fine. And get up and read it. And, you know, that's that. And that's not what

God wants. Criticisms of Israel. This same criticism was leveled against Israel.

You can go back to Jeremiah chapter 2. You can go back to Ezekiel chapter 16 among a couple of places. And you'll see that God has this same criticism of Israel from time to time during their history.

Is that you're going through the motions. But you're not comprehending what's lying under what you've been told to do.

You know, you're going through the... Yes. Excellent question.

I have not worked with this man before. But it's a perfect segue into the next thing.

What do you do about that? And the one word that sums up what to do about that, he says, remember.

Remember your first love. Remember what it was like when you first discovered...

when you were a brand new Christian. Remember that. How you couldn't get enough in the scripture.

You couldn't spend enough time with the fellow saints. You couldn't spend enough time in prayer.

Remember that. Because, yes, the Holy Spirit certainly plays the dominant role in our

Christian life while we're here on earth. But, you know, if we ignore the scripture, if we ignore the saints, one of the reasons that we're told to gather together, okay, is so that we can edify each other and build each other up, you know.

And don't you see this in just regular life?

What happens? What kind of a Red Sox fan are you going to be if you're out isolated by yourself somewhere?

You know, you got moved to California and, you know, you're not surrounded by guys who are just, you know, the big super Red Sox fans anymore.

Isn't it going to wane a little bit? Well, one of the things that he tells you about is, you know, don't give up meeting with each other.

You know, you need to be around other folks because, you know, you want to be excited about Jesus Christ?

Well, get with other folks that are excited about Jesus Christ. It's contagious. And so, you know, concentrate on the things that he tells you to concentrate on.

You know, stay in the word, you know, and stay with the local assembly.

Be a part of the local assembly. You know, why are we constantly encouraging you to come out on Sunday evenings?

It's not just because we want to fill the auditorium on Sunday evenings. We'd like that too. But, you know, it's important.

It's to your benefit to be with fellow believers. And so he says, remember, he says, remember the past and repent, which means turn around.

And are you raising your hand, Steve, or just stretching? Exactly.

Recap a little bit for what Steve just said. Think back and remember what your life was like before you were saved.

Or reflect some on what your life might have been like if he didn't reach down and pull you like a brand out of the fire, as the

Bible says. What if he hadn't done that? He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to elect you.

There's nothing in you that said, oh, this guy, you know, he measures up.

And so we're going to put him on the elected list. You know, he did this out of grace.

He could have left you to your own devices. And consider where you might be. And yes, when you think about those things, it does, it begins to, you don't want to lose the awe, if you will, at what

God has done in your life. Daniel, you were, you know, good point.

King David, what does David do? David is constantly reminding himself.

God is, David is constantly reminding those around him. You know, oh, we're in trouble.

You know, we're in a hard spot. Well, let's stop and think for a minute of all of the things that Jehovah God has done for his people

Israel, and he starts listing them off. You know, he's done this. He's done that. He took us out of Israel.

He walked us through the desert. He gave us water in the desert. He fed us in the desert, and starts listing off all these things.

And what does it say when, you know, when the camp's been overrun and all of the women and children have been kidnapped?

David does what? He encourages himself and the Lord first before he says, okay, now it's time.

Get your swords, put them on. We're going after the bad guys. So remember, remember, and repent, turn around.

Carol, exactly.

That, you know, there but for the grace of God go I, is a thought that you should have periodically.

The things that you would be, where you would be, what you would be involved in.

And so he's saying, remember. And then he says, do the deed you did at first. He says, remember what it was like when you were first saved, what you were like.

And so do that stuff again. You know, do that stuff again. You couldn't get enough of God's people.

You couldn't get enough of the scripture. And of course, they didn't have a lot of written scripture. But what they did have, they used.

You know, you couldn't, it was just a constant thing with you. And he says, be like that again.

Be like that again. Recover what you've lost. And then he says, and he'll repeat this over and over and over again.

First of all, at the end of every one of these seven passages, he says, he that hath an ear let him hear what the

Spirit saith unto the churches. So what's that mean? That means that's also for us. It's not just for the folks in Ephesus, it's universal application.

This message is a universal application. Yes, it's directed to the people at the church at Ephesus specifically.

But it's directed to us too. If you've got an ear, hear. You know, pay attention and do.

That's what's involved. That's what, it's not, it doesn't mean just, you know, be aware of, but act on what you hear.

And then he says, to him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

First of all, him that overcomes are Christians. That's a phrase used over and over and over during these next two chapters, and it means true believers.

People who are genuinely Christians, the ones that overcome. You know, people have tried to make subsets out of, you know, who's the ones that overcome.

And certain cults zero in on that. If you're a Christian, if you're truly a believer, you're one of the overcomers.

You're truly one of the ones that is going to persevere. And, you know, saints persevere.

That's one of the things that we know about saints. That's one of the ways we know they're saints is that they persevered. And he says,

I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Now, what's that a reference to?

It's the Garden of Eden. The tree of life was in the Garden of Eden. And so we get to eat of that.

You know, we are the ones to whom is granted everlasting life. Our lives are not eternal because we had a place where we started, but our lives are everlasting because they go on and they go on.

So any questions about Ephesus? Move on to Smyrna, the church under persecution.

Now, what's he say here, starting in verse eight unto the angel of the church in Smyrna, right?

These things say at the first and the last, who was dead and is alive. This is a message of comfort.

First and the last, who was dead and has come to life or it is alive.

This is who's speaking to you now. First of all, when he says I'm Alpha and Omega, that's a reference to his eternality.

And that is a reference to his deity. But he's also the one who in his humanity died and has been raised from the dead.

It's a message of comfort. It's a message of comfort. Jesus transcends the temporal.

Whatever's going on in your life right now, good citizens of Smyrna, Smyrna saints, don't worry about it because Jesus transcends the whole thing.

He's over all of it. And he's got all of it in his hand. You don't need to worry about your immediate set of circumstances, whatever they happen to be and however bad they happen to be.

Because the folks in Smyrna have got a lot of problems. Not a whole lot is known about this church.

Again, we presume that it was one of the ones that was planted by Paul as an outreach of the

Ephesus ministry. But however they got there, they're under heavy persecution.

Now, they're sitting in a city that's an ally of Rome. It's another free city. It's a center of science and medicine.

And the modern -day city of Izmir, Turkey is on the site of ancient

Smyrna. And so these folks are being persecuted. And we gather,

I mean, Christians are persecuted everywhere. So since this is set out that we gather that they are being especially persecuted, more so than is normal and average,

Daniel. Yes, it's worth mentioning, what

Daniel's brought up here, it's worth mentioning that Rome as, you know, why were the

Christians persecuted under Rome? Because Rome was very tolerant. There's that word again.

Rome was very tolerant about the religion of the peoples that they conquered.

Because Rome had gone over the entire known world, conquering peoples right and left. And everywhere they went, they didn't try to convert anybody.

The only thing they wanted you to do was add emperor worship to whatever it was that you had.

They were very tolerant. They were very ecumenical. They were just like modern culture. You know, oh, you worship the trees?

No problem. The only thing we want you to do is we want you to add the emperor to that. And all we want you to do, really, all we want you to do is once a year, we want you to come to the temple shrine and, you know, pay your temple tax.

Very big on that. And we want you to just declare that Caesar's God. Once a year.

That's all you have to do. And, of course, the Christians wouldn't do that. There is no God except God.

And so they refused to do that. And by doing that or by refusing to worship the emperor this one time a year, they brand themselves as rebels because they are in rebellion against the government.

And that's the one thing that the Romans could not allow. And so why are the why are the saints being persecuted?

There you go. And as Daniel pointed out, you know, here's this coin that they've got for Alpha and Omega, first and the last on the coin.

And these saints are saying, no, God is first and the last. It's God who's

Alpha and Omega. So they're being persecuted. And there was something in Smyrna. I don't know what it is.

But there was something in Smyrna that put them under a specially strong persecution.

And so this is what this is. They're being persecuted in an unusual way beyond the normal persecution that every church went got to participate in.

And so that's the commendation. That under this tribulation, that they're standing up under it.

And Jesus knows the details. Jesus, what did

Jesus say? I'm the first and the last. I'm the real first and the last. And I know the details.

I know all the details of your circumstances. And I am in control of all the details of your circumstances.

Nothing is happening that is escaping my notice. Nothing is going on that I don't know about.

Nothing is going on that I don't have control over. And so they're refusing to participate in the emperor worship.

They're getting persecuted also from the Jews. And they're also in abject poverty.

But Jesus knows all about that. He knows all about every one of those things. And notice this is the church where there is no condemnation.

He said, you guys are holding up under extreme persecution. Good job.

And that's it. There's no but to this one.

He says, you guys are holding up under extreme persecution. That's all I'm going to ask of you right now.

Continue to hold up. Continue to hang in there. And so he gives the command, don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid. The battle is supernatural and God is in control of it. Regardless of what's going to happen.

And so the counsel to them as it is to us also is remain faithful. Remain faithful.

Verse 10, fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried and you shall have tribulation 10 days.

In other words, it's not going to last a real long time. Something's going to happen.

I'm aware of this and I'm going to take care of it. You're going to have tribulation 10 days, a short period of time, whatever it is.

So you'd be faithful. You'd be faithful even unto death. If necessary, because the worst thing that your enemies can do to you is take your life.

But I have your soul in my hand. Jesus is saying, you know, that's the worst thing they can do.

And if they kill you, you'll be with me. And so be faithful.

I'll give you a crown of life. You know, they can take your physical life, but I can give you real life, everlasting life.

I can give you the crown of life. And then he that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit says unto the churches.

He that overcomes, that's Christians, shall not be hurt of the second death. Which is, you know, eternal.

And so we'll do one more before we stop today. Don't we so often, and this is going to be a little bit of a diversion, but don't we so often when we go to someone and we say,

I have this problem and we expect them to give us a checklist that will take care of whatever that problem is.

Do this, do that, do the other thing, you're done. And so often the problems that we face in life, real genuine problems, don't have solutions like that, do they?

And guys, now here's something that I'll tell you. This is not part of the lesson, but this is thrown in.

Nota bine, young men in particular, when your wives come to you with a problem, what do men always do?

Right? We're, we're problem solvers, man. You bring us a problem, we start, okay, let's say we got to do this, we got to do that.

And we start, you know, and then when our wives don't say, oh good, and go off, we get mad, don't we?

Because the thing of it, or she brings me this problem and there's, I've suggested three solutions and she doesn't want any of them.

Well, here's a hint, guys. What she really wanted to do was just have you listen and talk about the problem.

Your wives are smart. They know that there's no immediate solution to this problem. They just want to let, they just want to listen to you, you to listen to them talk about it.

And so often, you know, like, like Daniel just brought up, here we, that these folks are under heavy, heavy persecution and yet God says, be faithful.

Hang in there. You know, your first reaction is to say, well, that's being, be warm, be filled.

But actually, there's a lot more to it than that, that's involved in that. He's saying, be faithful because I do have the situation in hand.

And in due time, I will take care of it. You know, however, it's going to happen on my timetable, not yours.

You know, and it's going to happen in the way that I want it happening, not the way that you think it should be done.

All right, quickly, the church at Pergamum, the worldly church. Here, the correspondent is the holder of the two -edged sword.

A two -edged sword, that was the super weapon of its day, was the Roman short sword.

It had two edges, you could cut in both directions with it, had a sharp point so you could stab with it. And when put in the hands of Roman soldiers who are the prototype, if you will, of the disciplined army.

Now, that's when you really start to get disciplined troops that fought as a unified whole.

I mean, this thing was deadly. And so, that's what the correspondent says.

Jesus says, I'm the one with the sword. You know, I'm the one with the sword. The sword can bring punishment.

The sword can do damage. You know, I can do a lot of hurt with this thing.

I am the judge and executioner, if you will, because it's a short step between compromise with the world and incurring

God's wrath. So, he's saying, watch out. So, the church, there's no record of its founding, but it's certainly surrounded by pagan culture.

And the church is there, and it's been there long enough to deteriorate into its present state.

So, it's been there for a while, regardless of who founded it and how it was founded and how long it's been there. We don't know the details.

But it's in Pergamum, which is considered Asia Minor's greatest city, along with Ephesus, you know, one of the major cities of the time.

It was built up on a hill so that it surrounded its surroundings. It was a center of learning and culture.

There was a huge library there. It was also the center of pagan worship. Four of the five principal gods, small g, of Rome were worshiped in Pergamum.

Not a good place to be doing a church plant. And so, what does Jesus say?

Well, first of all, you're sitting in a very hard place, and yet you're holding fast to Christ's name.

You dwell where Satan's throne is. And there's several ideas as to what that might refer to.

One of them certainly is it's a center of pagan worship. I mean, you've got all these temples around there, and you've got a temple to this god and that god and somebody else.

Historians also tell us about it was built up on a hill, and there was a natural geological formation in the same area, which was referred to on occasion as Satan's throne.

It was a natural formation there.

But for whatever reason, there was also a huge altar of Zeus there, one of the great things of the ancient world.

There was a temple to Asclepius, who is the god of healing. And guess what was in that?

There were snakes everywhere. And that's where we still use the caduceus, the medical symbol.

If you ever wonder why there are snakes surrounding that, if you ever look closely at it, there you go.

It goes right back to this. And so, these folks did not deny the faith.

They maintained their faithfulness. That's their commendation. But the condemnation goes right along behind it, that you permit and you tolerate false teaching.

Again, the teaching of the Nicolaitans is mentioned here. Also, the teaching of Balaam, which is a reference to the

Old Testament, where Balaam was a prophet who was... You remember the donkey talked to him?

And he was set out to curse the Israelites and to lead them away from true worship into idolatrous worship.

And so, it said, you permit that. You don't throw it out. You're not like the Ephesians. When the

Ephesians come along, false teachers, they're out the door. You guys, oh, you know, he's such a nice guy.

You know, he's a real benefit to this assembly. We should certainly keep him in there. Plus the fact he's rich.

Have you seen what he puts in the offering plate every Sunday? Something like that. So, they're tolerant.

They're tolerant. There's that word again. And so, we're allowing this to continue in the church.

And you can't allow this sort of thing. You can't have a little bit of error in the church because it always grows.

It always grows. You can't allow a little bit of diversion from the straight and narrow path.

Because it always gets worse. And it always affects the saints.

And so, what's the command here? The command again is repent. Turn away from that.

Don't do that. Or as it was put from the theology of Bob Newhart, quit it.

You know, don't do that. Stop it. Because if you don't repent, repenting is the only cure for sinful behavior.

Otherwise, Jesus is going to come and do battle. And you are going to be caught up in it, saints.

See, sooner or later, if you tolerate error in your assembly, that's going to be corrected.

Some way or another. And even if you personally haven't gone off into the path of error, you're going to be caught up in whatever the punishment is.

Whether it's the removal of that church completely. I mean, churches have gone out of business because they wouldn't preach the truth.

But something's going to happen. And you're going to get caught up in this. So, repent.

Repent. And the council is hear and obey.

Hear the warning and obey it. And you will receive, first of all, the hidden manna.

You will receive a white stone, he says. You'll receive a new name. And I won't go into all of the ideas about what the white stone refers to.

But what it is, you're going to receive things that you need. Manna is what feeds you.

Jesus will take care of you. Jesus is going to deal with you.

And he's going to deal with you as his children. But he says, he who hath an ear, let him hear.

Verse 17. What the Spirit saith unto the churches, to him that overcometh,

I will give to eat of the hidden manna, that's nourishment. I will give him a white stone. I will give him a white stone.

And at least one of the explanations for what that is, is that it signifies admission.

It signifies that you are, you know, it marks you as one of the children of God. And in the stone will be a new name written, which no man knows except he that receiveth.

Something, a new name that is qualitatively different from what you had been known before.

And again, he who hath an ear, let him hear. So we're going to stop there. Any questions about Pergamum at this point?

Okay, we got through three churches. We're not too far over time. So two weeks from now, we will pick up the last four and we will go on from there.

Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful this morning that you have given us the book of Revelation along with the rest of Scripture so that we might know, so that we might see you in glory and revealed in majesty.

And that we can examine how things are going to come out in the end and that we can be encouraged, knowing that regardless of what happens on the way, that ultimately we are, in fact, on the winning side.

And so, Father, we thank you for this. We ask your blessing upon us this morning. We ask your blessing upon Pastor Mike as he opens the word to us.