As we come to the third letter,
as we say, and these weren't individual letters, this was
all written. You need to understand this whole
thing was all written. From Revelation 1 to Revelation
22, to all these churches, and the letter was circulated to
all the churches. These seven churches, and it
was read to them. So that the church at Ephesus
knew about the church at Smyrna, and the church at Smyrna knew
about the church at Pergamos, or a town called Pergamum. Pergamos,
the word Pergamos or Pergamum means lofty, exalted, elevated. This was a big city in those
days. And it was elevated, it was located
on a rocky hill, a high hill. They thought it was impregnable,
invincible. And Rome, understand now what
we're reading here about these churches, this is the Roman Empire. And that's the backdrop of all
that is said here in Revelation. And understand this, that the
Roman government was one of the most evil, wicked governments
that ever darkened the face of this earth. It wasn't a godly
government. It required the worship of Caesar,
things like this. He mentions a man here named
Antipas who was a member of this church. Maybe he was the pastor
at one time. We don't know, but he was murdered.
He was martyred because he wouldn't deny Christ. And we don't know
exactly what he was martyred over, but it could have been.
A lot of times they were murdered because they wouldn't say Caesar
is Lord. They wouldn't deny Christ. But Rome had made this Pergamos
the capital of the province of Asia. It was a place of a lot
of idol worship. Now, every place on earth, I
want you to understand this, every place on earth is a place
of idol worship. But this Pergamos There were
three manifestations of idolatry that were huge in this town. They worshipped the pagan god
of healing. I don't remember, I listened
to one message on this and the guy said the name of the god
and I can't remember it. Should have written it down,
but it doesn't matter. But you know the medical profession is
represented by the two snakes? That's the god that was worshipped
in Pergamos. It was known as a place of great
commerce and healing. So they worshiped the pagan god
of healing. They worshiped Caesar, Augustus,
had an idol to Caesar. And then they had a great altar
to the Greek god Zeus. So it was widespread. It's like
denominationalism today. You've got a lot of people who
claim to worship the true and living God with different denominations,
and that's impossible. I hope you understand that over
the 30 years or 40 years we've been here. That's impossible. But like the others, the letter
was addressed to the angel or the minister or the pastor. He says in verse 12, to the angel
of the church of Pergamos. And he identifies himself. Now
I mentioned this before. Notice how Christ identifies
himself in all these seven churches. And what that teaches us is number
one, Christ is everything to His people. In the book of Ephesus,
He's the one who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who
walks amidst the seven golden candlesticks. In the church of
Smyrna, He was the first and the last, that which was dead
and is alive. And then he goes on here, he's
the one in Pergamos, he which hath the sharp sword with two
edges. Now you know what that's talking
about, that's the Word of God. Remember in Hebrews chapter 4
it says, the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting
asunder. The Word of God is also represented
in Revelation by the symbolic vision where Christ had a sword
in His mouth. That's the sword of the Word
of God. Our weapon against the world, the flesh and the devil,
is the Word of God. It's not guns and knives, cannons
or tanks or anything like that. Our warfare is a warfare of the
mind and the heart. 2 Corinthians 10, Paul explains
that. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal. We have the sword of the Lord.
You might remember growing up in religion, you might have had,
in Sunday school, sword drills. And what they would do is they'd
give you a verse and whoever found it first. And that was
right. This is the sword of the Lord.
And empowered by the Spirit, it's the word of life. Now, without
the Spirit's empowering, invincible calling, working, You can read
it and you not understand it. You don't see the glory of Christ
in it, the power of His Word, the power of His finished work.
But once the Spirit reveals it to you, you see Christ everywhere. Now, men will accuse us of putting
Christ in it where He's not. Well, they just don't understand
it. They don't. But let me tell you something.
If you look at the Bible as just a moral handbook, or a book of
ethics, and there's morality all through it, and there's ethics
all through it, but without Christ, what is it all? The Bible says
it's sin. The Holy Spirit, one of his works
in using this sword is to convict us of sin because we believe
not on Christ. I can read the golden rule, for
example, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. That's
a good moral idiom. Something we should all strive
for. But you know what the main purpose of that statement in
the Bible is? Is to show us the perfection
of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. And you know
why that is? Because you don't love others
as you love yourself. And I don't love others as I
love myself. You could say, I'm trying more
power to you. But that won't save you. You
see, in order to be saved, you need the righteousness of one
who did love others as he loved himself. He loved his own unto
the end. That's what the scripture says.
You know what that means? That means Christ loved his people
whom God gave to him before the foundation of the world unto
the finishing of the work which required him to do what? To go
to the cross, suffer, bleed, and die for the sins of his people. And so though we look at do unto
others as you would have them do unto you as a good moral idiom
that every believer ought to strive for, But we realized,
hey, I'm always going to fall short. There's always going to
come those moments in time when I realize I love myself more
than anything. That's the nature of the flesh,
the nature of man. I need Christ. I must have Christ. I've got
no other hope but Christ. So He is the sword with two edges. It's used both to convict of
sin and to drive us to Christ for salvation, for righteousness,
for life. And also it's a word of judgment
and discernment. It's the word of righteousness
by which we as believers can discern good and evil and it
draws the line. The word of God draws the line.
I don't draw the line. You don't draw the line, and
that's really important to this church, who later on we're gonna
find compromised. They failed to draw the line.
He says at the beginning, he says in verse 13, he says, I
know thy works. Anytime he says that to these
churches, we know what he's talking about. He's talking about the
fruit of his power and grace, the fruit of faith and love in
the obedience of grace, which is the work of God in us. You
remember he says, work out your own salvation. And he says, but
it's God who works in you to both to do and to will his good
pleasure. Good works for a believer. are
the operations of the Spirit within us to cause us to glorify
our Father which is in heaven. And in order for those works
to be accepted, they have to be just as washed in the blood
of Christ as we ourselves are to be accepted. The Bible says
they are the foreordination of God. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2.10. How are you going to know the
difference between good and evil? It's only by the Word of God.
If God says it's evil, it's evil. You know at the end of the book
of Judges, it says every man did that which is right in his
own eyes. The book of Isaiah says they
called good evil and evil good. Is not that the case in our day?
Both in society and in religion? Isn't that it? I know thy works. And listen
to this in verse 13. He says, I know thy works and
where thou dwellest. I know where you live and even
where Satan's seat is. Satan's throne. Now Satan's seat
essentially is everywhere. In fact, if you look over in
1 John 5, I believe, well, let's just turn there. 1 John chapter
5. Listen to this scripture. This tells you something. about
the difference between God's people and the world. And he
says in verse 19 of 1 John 5, and we know that we are of God. How do we know that? How do you
know that you're of God? How do I know that? Well, because
according to God's word and according to God's judgment, He has brought
me to find hope, peace, salvation, forgiveness, righteousness, life,
glory, in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, and
based upon His one work of redemption. For He hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. His blood, His righteousness
alone, And nothing else, nothing added, nothing taken away. If you're clinging to Christ
as he's identified and revealed in this word, you're of God. But look on in verse 19, we know
that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness or
literally in the wicked one, Satan. So that tells you that
Satan has been Allowed by God to have control of this world.
God has already defeated him. Christ defeated Satan on the
cross. This is when he was cast down. This is when he was bound
up. He's been set free. He's been
loose. But here we see that in the gospel millennium, in the
thousand year reign, which we're going through right now. Not
a literal calendar thousand years, never has been. But God's appointed
time where this church, the New Testament church, and here's
what you're going to find. In the gospel millennium, you're
going to find churches who stood or stand for the truth, but who
compromise it. And that's what Pergamum represents.
They claim to believe the truth. Some of them may believe the
truth, probably do, and that's why he would not give them a
recommendation else it was true. Look at what he says, verse 13,
I know thy works, I know where you live, even where Satan's
seed is, and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied
my faith. By the grace of God, they had
not denied Christ in the face of much opposition, where they
lived, where Satan's throne was. And he says, even in those days
wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you
where Satan dwelt, this man Antipas had given his life for the cause
of Christ. But by the grace of God, this
church stood firm for the faith. His name and the faith are the
same thing. His name is that which identifies
Him, distinguishes Him, and glorifies Him. Who is God? Who is Christ? Second person of the Trinity.
And He says, you have not denied My faith. You stand firm for
it. Even Antipas, a faithful, and
notice He said, He was My faithful martyr. He belonged to Christ.
He didn't belong to the church. He belonged to Christ. All the
church belongs to him, where Satan's seed is. But look at
verse 14, he says, but I have a few things against thee. And
you know, this kind of might boggle our minds a little bit.
How could those who stood fast for his name and did not deny
his faith, how could they allow this to happen? And I suspect
it's probably a slow process where you let things go, you
don't exercise theological discipline in the church. Somebody comes
in with a different idea, and you just kind of slough it off,
and then it begins to grow like a cancer. We see that when Paul
addresses Timothy, where men came in denying the resurrection,
saying that it already happened. How could they tolerate that?
But that's what happened. He says, I have a few things
against thee because thou hast them that hold the doctrine of
Balaam. Now you know about Balaam. If
you want to read about Balaam, we're not going to go back there
because it's too long. But back over in Numbers chapter
25, and it carries on up to around chapter 31, there was a false
prophet named Balaam. And he was commissioned by the
King of Moab, whose name was Balak. And you know, Moab was
a common enemy of Israel. They hated Israel. And King Balak
of Moab, he commissioned Balaam, giving him money, that false
prophet, to curse Israel. Curse Israel for me. Now this
Balaam had a reputation like being a magician or a mystic
or something like that who had power. So Balak commissioned
him to curse Israel. But you know what happened? By
the providence and the sovereignty of God, God stepped in and kept
Balaam from cursing Israel. And this is an amazing thing.
You go back and read it, you'll be blessed by this. Balaam had
every intention of standing up and cursing the people of Israel.
But every time he opened his mouth, came out blessings for
Israel. Unintentional blessings by him.
God speaking. And you'll find some of the most
beautiful language of grace coming out of the mouth of this false
prophet. Not because he wanted to preach that. Not because he
wanted to bless Israel, but because God made him. It's an amazing
thing. And three times that happened.
And you remember the last time about Balaam's ass? And how Balaam
wanted to kill the ass? But anyway, I won't go into the
whole story. But here's what Balaam wanted
Israel to do. He wanted Israel to compromise
with Moab. He wanted them, his message was
don't deny your God, but just accept others, other gods, other
ways. And he wanted them to eat things
sacrificed to idols. Now you know Paul dealt with
that in Corinth about buying meat in the market that had been
sacrificed. That's not the same thing as
this. What Balaam wanted them to do, what Balak wanted them
to do, was to enter into their idolatrous parties and meals
and eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication,
both physical and spiritual. Fornication in this sense, intermarry
with the Moabite women, which they were forbidden to do, and
they did it, and to worship to allow, anyway, worship of their
idol. It's kind of like somebody said,
well, I don't believe in that God, but they do, and that's okay.
And apparently there were some in the church who were going
that way. They were compromising. And they did these things. You
know, the spirit of Balaam, the spirit of compromise is mentioned
a couple of times in the New Testament. 2 Peter chapter 2
and Jude 11, where they went the way of Balaam, Well, compromise
is the way of least resistance. Oh, we don't want trouble. We
don't want to offend anybody. You know what I'm talking about.
Oh, we believe sovereign grace. But you know, these free willers,
these are men, you know, let's just keep quiet. That's what's
going on here. The way of least resistance approved
by the world and easiest on the flesh. But any compromise of
God's truth literally is an open denial of Christ. And the only
way to get along with false religion is to remove the offense of the
cross. The message of God's grace which
will not allow but one way to God. And that's Christ, the God-man,
and His righteousness imputed every other way. And the Gospel
draws this line now. The sword of the Lord, every
other way, is false. Every other way is deadly. Look over with me to 2 Corinthians. Chapter 11. This is what Paul's dealing with
in the church at Corinth. False preachers had entered and
crept in. And incidentally, what you see
in the book of Revelation, as it progresses, you see Satan
first persecuting the church from the outside. This man Antipas
killed by Romans because he would not bow the knee to Caesar or
would not compromise. You see Satan going from persecution
from the outside to persecution from within. Which eventually ends up in that
great apostasy. To where, at a given time, what
is generally known in the world as the Christian church is not
Christian at all. It's Christian in name only.
They call themselves Christian, but they deny the truth. They
deny the doctrine of Christ. And look here, Paul writes in
2 Corinthians 11 verse 2, he says, For I am jealous over you
with godly jealousy, For I have espoused you to one husband,
that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Now what is
that chaste virginity? That spiritual virginity which
causes the bride of Christ to cling to Him alone as her husband
and not tolerate or compromise or sell herself out in spiritual
fornication to other gods. But look at verse three. He says,
but I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. And that word simplicity has
with it the connotation of singleness. Singularity. You husbands, your
heart and your mind is to be singly focused on your wife. You wives, your heart and your
mind is to be singly focused on your husband. And that's what
Paul's talking about. You're to be singly, you're his
bride. You're his wife, the church.
Your heart, your mind is to be singly focused on Christ. The true Christ. Listen to verse
four. But if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus. Another one? In the Bible, and
you know the New Testament was originally written in the Greek
language. Not modern Greek. But when you see the word another,
there were two Greek words for that. One would be another of
the same kind. And that would apply, for example,
in John 16 where Christ spoke of the Holy Spirit that when
He went away, there would be another Comforter to come. One
like himself, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.
Another of the same kind. One who is God, just like Christ
was God, is God. The other word another is another
of a different kind. That's what this word is. For
if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, one of a different kind,
it could be one who is not man. It could be one who is not God.
It could be one who is a sinner. That's another Jesus. Do you
believe there are other Jesuses? Christ spoke of it when He spoke
to the disciples about the future. He said, they'll come saying,
here's Jesus, there's Jesus, we preach Jesus. But it's not the Jesus of the
Bible. I remember I read this to a young man who was going
into a seminary. We were talking about the gospel,
and he didn't believe the true gospel. His gospel was conditional
salvation, the righteousness on a sliding
scale, that kind of thing. And I told him, I said, that's
another Christ, another Jesus. He said, what are you talking
about? I said, I'm talking about what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians
11. And I read this verse to him. We were in your office,
Mike. I don't know if you remember this or not. There's two men
there. And I said, he preaches another
Jesus. And he said, I didn't even know that was in the Bible.
Well, there it is. Another Jesus whom we've not
preached. I've often said that one of the
major things that we need to have true assurance of salvation
is this, is the Jesus I'm depending on. Is He the true Christ of
this book? Because if He isn't, all of my
faith and all of my dependence and all of my devotion is for
naught. Who is He? And then another point. What did He accomplish on the
cross of Calvary? Somebody said He died. Well,
that's true. He died. But what did his death
accomplish? He speaks of that in the vision
that he gave to Peter and James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration
when he spoke to Moses, who represented the law, and he spoke to Elijah,
who represented the prophets. They spoke of his decease, but
not just of his decease. They spoke of his decease, which
he would accomplish at Jerusalem. And the word deceased there is
the Greek word for exodus. In other words, his death's going
to lead some people out of bondage. Well, he tried to save everybody
if they'd let him. That's not the Jesus of this
book, friend. That's another Jesus. Verse 4, for if he come and preaches
another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive another
spirit of a different kind, not the spirit of truth, which you
have not received, or another gospel of a different kind, which
you have not accepted, you might well bear with him." And the
word him there is in italics, it wasn't in the original. Paul
is saying, bear with me. He's not saying, bear with false
prophets. And here, over here in Revelation 2, in the church
at Pergamos, Christ is saying, I have this against you that
you're tolerating them. You're bearing with them. You're
letting them go. You're not drawing the line. You're not exercising
theological discipline. When a man gets up and teaches
contrary to the gospel, you've got to stand firm, having the
Word of God as your authority, and stop him. That's just exactly
what this church did several years ago. When a man stood up
here and talked about Christ being made a sinner. That's another
Jesus. You stood firm. You exercised
theological discipline. And you did it kindly. You did
it in a right way. You did it according to the scriptures.
Well, let's go back to Revelation 2. Verse 15. So hast thou also then
that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
Now I dealt with this last week. And some people say, in fact,
most people, the interpreters, say the Nicolaitans were the
kind of preachers who say, well, now we're saved by grace, so
what you do in life doesn't matter. How you live doesn't matter. And that could have been the
case. You know, I've never run into anybody who actually preached
that. That because we're saved by grace,
you can live like hell. That kind of thing. Or sin as
much as you want to. I've never heard anybody preach
it. I know a guy who acted like it. Not in this church. A preacher
who acted that way. But he didn't preach it. But
that may have been the case. I don't know. But what I've found,
as I said last week, that the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,
the meaning of it is found in the word itself. It's a compound
word, Nikos, Laos. Nikos means to conquer. Laos
means the people. You know clergy, laity, that
kind of thing? The clergy, that's the high muckety
mucks. And the laity, that's y'all. That's why I've often, when I
go visit somebody in the hospital, everybody tells me, you need
to get you that clergy thing. I don't want that clergy thing.
I wouldn't mind parking closer every now and then, but I'm not
going to do that. I don't want clergy on my car.
I'm not a Nicolet. That's what I believe in. What
it boils down to is instead of following the word of God, the
sword, they follow men. And men love it. Preachers love
it. They love to have a following.
That's the worst thing you can get. But they love to have it. Paul dealt with that kind of
spirit in 1 Corinthians 1. We're of Paul, we're of Apollos,
that kind of thing. I'm not going to listen to anybody
else except Pastor So-and-so. But whatever they're doing, They're
following, and those who are doing wrong here are following
the leads of men and not the word of God. That's the problem. And God says, I hate it. I hate
it. And so he says in verse 16, he
issues the command, repent or else I will come unto thee quickly
and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. You know, as believers who have
been brought to repentance of dead works and former idolatry,
which we are brought to when the spirit initially regenerates
us and converts us and brings us into the kingdom. We still
have to be continually brought to godly sorrow over our sin
as we wore after the flesh against the flesh. and in light of the
matchless grace of God in Christ who died and paid the penalty
of all of our sins. Christ has freely given us and
justified us by his righteousness alone. And we owe him our love. We owe him our loyalty. We owe
him our obedience as we're motivated by his grace and love toward
us and by our love and gratitude to him. And He says, otherwise
He would come unto thee quickly and fight against them with the
sword. We really don't know exactly what all that entails. I know
in some of these churches He said, the light will be snuffed
out. In other words, there'd be no
church in that area after that. This is not conditional repentance
or conditional salvation about salvation. This has to do with
the witness of that church in that city. And if this cancer
of compromise continues, there would be no church in that city. The worst thing that can happen
to any city or town is the removal of the gospel witness, the gospel
light. So he said, I'll fight against
them with the sword. God's truth is the weapon of
our warfare, as I mentioned. And we need to understand this.
Christ never fights against His true children. He chastises us. He teaches us. He causes us,
He brings us to godly sorrow over sin. But He never fights
against His true children. The Bible says, if God be for
us, who can be against us? So He never fights against us.
But He preserves us, He protects us, He cares for us, and even
when He chastises us, it's for His glory and our good. Well
look at verse 17. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Every church this
is said. Do you have ears to hear, eyes
to see? Then you listen. And to him that
overcometh, will I give to eat of the hidden manna, What is
overcoming? It's believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Persevering in the faith, having been preserved by God's
grace. And the hidden man of what is it? That's Christ. He's
the bread of life. And He's hidden to the world.
That's why we need a revelation from God. The gospel is the revelation
of the righteousness of God. And until that revelation comes
in the power of the Spirit, it's hidden. It's a mystery. And He'll give him the white
stone. Back then in the courts, when they were judging a person
who was accused of a crime, they had an urn. And if the judges
declared the prisoner guilty, they put a black stone in the
urn. If the judges declared the prisoner innocent or not guilty,
they put a white stone. And what is this white stone?
It's to the people of God, truly believing in Christ, they are
justified. They're forgiven of all their
sins and declared righteous in God's sight, by His righteousness
imputed. And in the white stone, in the
white stone is a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving
he that receiveth it. And what is our name? Well, we
have many names, but you know the one that I go to because
it's so inclusive of all the blessings of grace. Christ is
the Lord our righteousness, and we are named after him. His bride is the Lord our righteousness. And we won't compromise on that.
We cannot. But some in this church were.
And that might have been the downfall of the church, we don't
know. I don't believe there's a church there today in whatever
it's called today. But that's the spirit of compromise.
Lord, deliver us from this. Let's stand and turn in our hymnals
to hymn number 175, Standing on the Promises.