Alright, let's look at Revelation
chapter 2 and verse 12, the danger of compromise. One of the ways
that we understand something of the symbols, the phrases,
and the exact message of these passages in Revelation is as
we connect them to the old, there are many times in these passages
there are Old Testament references. that we can go to. Though we
don't have a lot of time in our session this morning to go and
read all of that, I do encourage you to study this, take the lesson,
and study this on your own and read this. I'll give you some
ideas about this in a minute. But let's look at verse 12. He
says, And to the angel, or the messenger, who I believe is the
pastor or the elder, of the church in Pergamos, and you can read
about the city of Pergamos. It was the capital, the province
of Asia, made so by the Roman Empire. It was a city that was
high and elevated. They had a lot of pride there
because of that, as I put in the lesson, on a huge rocky hill.
And what it was is that gave the impression, well, we're invincible.
We're impregnable. We can't be defeated. It was
a place of idolatry. We'll talk about that in just
a moment, but look at verse 12, he says, these things saith he
which hath the sharp sword with two edges. Now, one of the things
that you see is the Lord through the apostle John addresses these
churches is his identification of himself usually meets head
on with the problem that they're having, if there is a problem.
And of course, when you see him identify himself as the one who
hath the sharp sword with two edges, what do you think of?
Well, that's the Word of God. That's the Word. The Word of
God is sharper than any two-edged sword, the writer of Hebrews
wrote. That word that if empowered by
the Holy Spirit cuts asunder even to the thoughts and the
intents of the heart. Now we know that'll happen even
to the unbeliever at judgment because the word of God will
expose an unbeliever for what they are. And that's wicked in
the sight of God. But the Holy Spirit uses the
word to cut into our very inner being to show us what we are
by nature, our sin and our depravity, and convicts us of sin in light
of Christ. And that's that sharp two-edged
sword. Now, the sharp two-edged sword of the Word of God continues
to operate in the lives of His people showing us the right way,
cutting away what's wrong and showing what's right. So whatever
he's going to say about this church, it has specifically,
it's related specifically to the remedy here, Christ. In other words, we've got to
keep to the word of God, no matter what we see. No matter what we
even think necessarily, we've got to stay with the Word of
God. And we'll see a lot of different things around us that'll perplex
us, that'll trouble us, that may cause us to even doubt. That's possible because we're
human. We're sinners saved by the grace of God. And that's
why if the Lord didn't keep us, we wouldn't be kept. Isn't that
right? He preserves us under glory because He is the Lord
our righteousness. But this thing about the Word
of God is so important. How are we going to know what's
good or what's evil, what's right, what's wrong, apart from the
Word of God? And that's what he's saying. Well, look at verse
13. He says, I know thy works. Now, of course, we've talked
about that. He says this to every one of these churches. And what
he's talking about is their works of faith. He's not talking about
works by which people earn God's favor, blessings, or anything
like that, or their rewards. You know, people think that,
but you have to see these things in the context of the gospel.
You know, when the Bible talks about the works of a believer
in the context of the gospel, that removes any notion of working
in order to establish a righteousness of our own. Because if we're
working to establish a righteousness of our own, we deny the righteousness
of God in Christ. The notion or the idea of works
in a believer's lives in the context of the gospel It gets
rid of any notion of works aimed at saving ourselves or keeping
ourselves saved or earning our way into God's favor or blessings. We're bond servants, that's what
the scripture calls us. We're fruit bearers. Salvation
is by grace, where his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in. So anytime we talk about works, we gotta keep it in the
context of the gospel and the covenant of grace. So when he
says, I know thy works, and listen what he says, he says in verse
13, I know where thou dwellest, I know where you live, even where
Satan's seat is. Now that word seat is throne.
And what he's talking about is this church is right smack dab
in the middle of a place where Satan rules. Well, we could probably
all say that, even we who live in the Bible Belt, in some form
or fashion or some degree or another. But Pergamos, or Pergamum
sometimes it's called, was a place where there was a lot of idolatry.
And it was a place where Satan's deception was very popular. And so he says, you dwell where
Satan's seed is. But he says in verse 13, now
here's the evidence of God's grace and power in their lives.
And thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith,
even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr who was
slain among you where Satan dwelt. We can talk about persecution
and the reality of it and what's going on here. Apparently this
church was going through a lot of persecution. We talked about
last week in the church at Smyrna, that was kind of like, the church
at Smyrna was like an identification of the churches of Jesus Christ
going through persecution, suffering. But every church, in some form
or another, Every church where the gospel is preached, what
I'm talking about, every true church, the wheat, not the tares,
every true church where God's gospel is preached without compromise
is going to be persecuted. Where we stand for the truth
and don't compromise with our surroundings in any way, even
our religious surroundings. And so he says, you haven't denied
the truth. You stand fast for my name. His
name is his glory. His name is that which identifies
and distinguishes him as the one true savior of sinners. And listen to how he puts it
here. You have not denied my faith. What is his faith? That's
the gospel. You haven't denied the gospel.
You haven't denied the fact that God saves sinners by sovereign
grace alone, that he saves sinners based upon the righteousness
of Christ alone. And you didn't do that even when
this man named Antipas. Now, this man Antipas, we don't
know much about him. There's nothing said here within
the context. But apparently he was killed. because of his faith. He was
like Stephen. You remember Stephen in Acts
chapter 7 who stood in Jerusalem and he preached the gospel. Remember
how he related the whole history of Israel and brought it down
to one point and he said, here's the reason for your existence
as a nation and that is the one you crucified and slain. You
rejected him, you crucified him, you slew him and he was the very
reason for your existence. That's why all this Jewish history
had come about. That's what Stephen was saying.
And of course we know what happened. Scripture says they gnashed on
him with their teeth. That means they gritted their
teeth at him. That's how angry they were. And so back then they
didn't have a government constitution that protected them and they
stoned him. And he did for the faith. Well,
this man Antipas was a faithful martyr who was slain among you
where Satan dwells. So this is a man who lived there
in the church. Some say he may have been the
pastor. I don't know. The scripture doesn't say, and
I'd just rather just keep quiet if the scripture does, but he
was a faithful martyr. That's a testimony of the grace
and the power of God. Well look at verse 14, now he
says, I have a few things against thee. So now he commended them
for these works of grace, indicating the power and the goodness of
God in their lives. You haven't denied the faith.
He says, you haven't openly denied the gospel, but look at verse
14. He says, I have a few things
against thee because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine
of Balaam. Balaam. Now, who's this Balaam? Well, Balaam, it says in verse
14, he taught Balak to cast a stumbling block. That word stumbling block
is like a trap you catch an animal in. He set a trap. before the children of Israel,
to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication."
So there's the Old Testament reference right there. And you
can find that back in the book of Numbers, chapter 22 through
24. You can find the story of Balaam. And who was this Balaam? Well,
Balaam was a man who claimed to be a prophet of God. He claimed
to be sent of God to Israel. And this man Balak, you know
who Balak was? He was the king of Moab. Now
you know about Moab? Remember Ruth was from Moab?
Moab was a place of great idolatry. And it was a place of great evil.
I think in the book of Psalms, I didn't reference it in your
lesson, Moab is called God's wash pot. That's a refuse pot,
that's what it is. That's how bad Moab was. Well, when the children of Israel
were coming through, this king, Balak, He was afraid of Israel, you
know, the Hebrew children, you know, as they went out from Sinai
to cross the desert and all that, and how, I think, I can't remember,
I think it was the first tribe that attacked them was the Amalekites,
if I'm not mistaken. But anyway, they got a reputation.
And this king was afraid, so he connived to get Balaam to
try to seduce the children, the Hebrew children, to compromise
the truth. And he wanted him to do two things.
He wanted him to give some type of credit, not openly by word,
but by eating things sacrificed unto idols. Just go have dinner
with them. Just go eat with them in their
idolatrous feast. Just, you know, and that'll be
okay. You don't have to deny your faith.
It's a compromise, you see. Now understand, you gotta understand
the culture back there a little bit. In any context like that,
when you sat down to have a meal with somebody in a religious
way, that was having, in essence, a religious fellowship. That
doesn't mean that we're forbidden today to sit down and have dinner
or supper or breakfast with an unbeliever, because that's not
a religious thing. Now you can turn it into a religious
thing if you want. A lot of people can do that.
But what Balak wanted Balaam to do was to get them to leave
Moab alone and give some credit by silence, just by eating, that
it's okay to be an idolater. And then the second thing about
fornication, now we can talk about spiritual fornication,
that's part of this, Anytime you have fellowship, religious
fellowship now, with an unbeliever, the Bible calls that spiritual
adultery or spiritual fornication. And that's the key. You know,
back over in the book of 2 John, the scripture has something to
say about that. And this was a problem, you know.
It's kind of like, if you look at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, 1st
John is a book that sets the boundaries of fellowship. I've
often said in the book of 1st John there are three benchmarks
of fellowship there. And the first one is light. Our
fellowship is with the Father and the Son, he says, and it's
a fellowship of light. We don't walk in darkness. That's
why he says, if we say we have no sin, we lie and do not the
truth, we call God a liar. We walk in the light of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We walk in the light of truth.
We're children of light. So our fellowship is a fellowship
of light and light cannot have fellowship with darkness. When
you turn the lights on, what happens? Darkness leaves. You
can't have light, and I know you can dim lights and all that,
I'm not talking about, but when light shines, darkness leaves.
You can't have the two together. And then the second benchmark
is the benchmark of righteousness. Righteousness cannot have fellowship
with iniquity. Now I'm not talking about the
fact that we're sinners, because we are. We're sinners, and by
nature, we're no better off than anybody. And we're never to look
down on anybody just because they're a sinner. That doesn't
mean we condone sin. We don't condone sin in them
or in ourselves. But we realize that, look, if
God were to mark or impute iniquity, none of us would stand. The best
of us would be out. If God imputed sin to us, that's
why we need Christ. That's something we know every
day of our lives, isn't it? God be merciful to me, the sinner. I have no hope of salvation today,
right now, standing behind this pulpit, but Jesus Christ and
Him crucified and His righteousness imputed. Not one word I say makes me righteous. It's Christ who makes me righteous
and that's what I preach. That's the fellowship of righteousness,
and where is our righteousness? It's in Christ. Now, if somebody
else has righteousness, or they think they do somewhere else,
we don't have fellowship with them, not religious fellowship.
We might have to work with them, they might be family members,
and we have dealings with them as a family member, physical
family, but we have no religious fellowship. And then the third
benchmark is love. herein is love, not that we love
God. And that's talking about loyalty to the brethren. That's
not talking about, well, we're all just feel good, happy, happy,
and like each other all the time. That's not what that love is.
That love is a lie. And it's not to say that people
don't love each other in some ways, but the kind of love that
he's talking about, that's the love of fellowship, is that which
binds us together in the gospel. We may not have one other thing
in common. But we're together in that, in
that gospel. And that's what causes us to
stay together, it's what causes us to worship together, that's
what causes us to help each other when we need help, especially
when we suffer for righteousness' sake. That's the fellowship of
love. Now, remember in 1 John he says, marvel not if the world
hates you. In John 15 he said that. See,
love can't have fellowship with hate, not over the gospel. Well,
look at 2 John 9. Now, here's what he says, Whosoever
transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ. The
word transgresses means they go too far. They go beyond the
word of God. They go beyond the doctrine of
Christ. Now that's what Balak wanted Balaam to do. God told
Israel, keep yourself separate from that idolatry. And Balak
says, no, no, you go seduce them to come and eat things offered
to idols and to commit spiritual fornication. Come on. Because we can all get along
better. Isn't that right? There'll be
peace, not war. I just want everybody to get
along. In the gospel, the only way to
do that is to compromise and to commit spiritual fornication.
But the Word of God says, this is the sharp two-edged sword
now that he's talking about. Whosoever transgresses and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. They don't have
God. They're not children of God.
They're not worshipers. They're not saved. And he says,
he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the father
and the son. And listen to what he says in
verse 10. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine.
Now there's your key. The gospel of God's grace. The
gospel of righteousness in Christ. The gospel of forgiveness of
sins by the blood of Christ. Receive him not into your house,
Neither bid him God's speed." Now what that literally means,
it means don't receive him into your family. You see, if you
believe the gospel, you're my brother or my sister in Christ.
Didn't Christ say that? Who is my mother? Who is my brother?
He said, those who do the will of my Father. What is the will
of the Father? It's to come to Christ, it's
to believe in Him, it's to follow Him. But now if you're not looking
to Christ alone, you're not in my spiritual family. You're not
in the spiritual family of God. That doesn't mean you can't let
him into the door of your house here. You understand that? You're
going to have all kinds of people come to your home and do things
who are not believers. Now, he says, receive him not
in your house, neither bid him Godspeed. In other words, God
bless you in the sense of promoting what you believe, promoting your
religion. And he says, for he that biddeth
him Godspeed is a partaker, a participant, a fellowshipper of his evil deeds. Now again, I want to emphasize,
that doesn't mean you can't have unbelievers into your home. I
mean, your family members who are unbelievers, It means you
can't have religious fellowship with them. That's the compromise. Now go back to Revelation 2.
That's what was going on here. That's the issue with Balaam
and Balak. Go read it. Numbers 22 through
24. But now this fornication in verse
14, to commit fornication. Another thing that Balak wanted
Balaam to do, Balak the king of Moab, he wanted Balaam to
do, is he wanted to encourage the Hebrew men to intermarry
with Moabite women. And they were not to do that.
The Old Covenant forbade that. You see, the only way that a
Hebrew man or Hebrew woman could marry one outside of the nation
is for that person to enter that nation and receive the truth
as revealed in the Old Covenant. Now, you remember Ruth? Remember,
she came out of Moab after her husband was dead, but she followed
Naomi or Naomi, however you want to pronounce it, out of Moab
and she said, I'll go where you go. My God, your God will be
my God. And in essence, she became an
Israelite. And so it was perfectly legal
for her to marry Boaz. And, of course, we could talk
about that picture and the providence of God and the promise fulfilled
for weeks on that one, couldn't we? Because we know that Ruth
and Boaz, what were they, the grandparents of David, King David? And so you see how the providence
of God. But see, they couldn't intermarry. They were forbidden to intermarry
with idolaters. But Balaam was seducing them
to intermarry with idolaters, and when they did, that's fornication. That's spiritual fornication.
That's what he's talking about. So it all comes down to this
compromise. Compromise, what is it? I've got it on your left. It's
the least way of resistance. It's the easy road out. It's
approved by the world. It's the easiest on the flesh.
It makes us, oh, boy, I'm so glad we avoided that persecution. That's what it is. But any compromise
of the gospel is a denial of Christ. Now, you remember Paul
talked about the offense of the cross in Galatians? Here's what
happened. You remember what happened? In
Galatians, these false Judaizers came along saying, yes, we're
all Christian, yes, we believe in Christ, yes, it's all by grace,
but you've got to be circumcised. Or all that means nothing. And
that's why Paul said, if you're circumcised for that reason,
Christ will profit you nothing. If righteousness come by the
law, then Christ, here's what that compromise, you know, some,
and I'll guarantee there are people in the Galatian churches
who say, well, now we don't want to, you know, we don't want to
offend those guys, they're Jews. They say they believe in Christ,
and I'm sure they appeared righteous, and some of them were probably
real good guys as far as being kind and all that. That's why
Paul said that though we are an angel from heaven, preach
any other gospel. I mean, you all have seen this
stuff go on today, haven't you? I have. And I've been tempted
to do it in the sense of people trying to say, well, you're too
hard. You're just too narrow. Well, sometimes, you know, when
I get accused of that, I get to thinking, well, am I? And
you know what happens? I go back to the sharp two-edged
sword, the word of God, and I find out, no, it's not true. It's not true. You cannot compromise
on the truth of the gospel, the person and work of Christ and
what he accomplished on Calvary to make us righteous before God.
Now if there's any other way, then this isn't the way. That's
what this is all about. And that's what he's saying here.
Look at verse 15. Now he goes to verse 15, he says,
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,
which thing I hate. I tell you what I think this
indicates, what I believe it indicates. Now remember I dealt
with the Nicolaitans over in Revelation 2, so I'm not going
to go into a long thing about that. You go back and read Revelation
2, 6. Read the notes on that too if you don't, if you get
them and read the notes. What I believe the Nicolaitans
are. You remember that there's some who say that this was a
cult started by a man named Nicholas, And they were either Gnostic
or they were the kind of people who said, well, we're saved by
graves. It doesn't matter what we do. There's no biblical support for
that at all. And you say, well, who are the
Nicolaitans? We don't know for sure, but I know what the word
Nicolaitan means. And one of the things I think
that throws people on this is when you read that word, it's
capitalized. Now, you know who did that? It
was the King James translators. It wasn't capitalized in the
original. Now, don't get me wrong. I mean, I think the King James
is the best translation available. I do. But still, you have to
be a student of the word. So if you just see that word,
what you've got is a compound word, which means power over
the people. And here, keep it in line with
the Old Testament reference. Here's Balaam and he says, I'm
a prophet of God. Now what does he mean by that?
Well, I speak the word of God and I have the authority of that
word. And therefore you are to listen
to what I'm saying. And somebody says, well, don't
you do the same thing? Well, here's what I do. I'm preaching
the word of God, and I have the authority of God if I preach
this word. You check me out. You test me
by this word. That's what I say. You'd never
take it just because I say it. Don't believe it just because
I say it. I tell people I've been preaching the gospel for
over 30 years now, and that's okay. But you don't take it,
you don't believe it, you don't act upon it just because I or
any other man said, you check me out with the word of God.
That's what this is all about. But now these Nicolaitans were
the type of people like Balaam. I'm sin of God and you don't
question me. And I believe that they were
trying to do the same thing that Balaam was, trying to seduce
these people to compromise the gospel. We've got to avoid that
danger. So that's what I believe it's
talking about. So look at verse 16. He says, well, he says, repent,
here's the command. Now, you need to see the wickedness
of this. You need to see that this is
not the way of the word of God and the way of the gospel. You
need to change your mind about these things. I know repentance
is the work of God. It's a gift of God. But if we
have that, if we've been born again by the Spirit, we have
that spirit of repentance. We have that heart of repentance
that will bow to God's Word. So he says, repent. He says,
repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against
them with the sword of my mouth. Now notice what he's saying.
First of all, understand this. God never fights against his
people. He never does. Everything God
does is for his glory and the good of his people. That's why
we can say all things work together for good to them that love God,
who are called according to his purpose. God's never against
us. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Romans chapter eight. God justified
us. If we're saved now, if we're
sinners saved by grace, God justifies us. And that means he will lay
no sin to our charge. Now, he sees our sin and he sometimes
chastises us for our sin, but that chastisement is not God
being against. Did you ever discipline your
children? Does that mean you were against
them? No, you did it because you love them, because you're
for them. So God's never against his people. But he's telling
this church, this local body of believers in Pergamos, he
says, look, he said, if this doesn't change, and we know now
it's all within his providence and sovereign power, I know that.
But he gives us the commands, you know, the secret things belong
to God, the revealed things belong to us. He says, I'll come unto
you quickly, I'll fight against them. Who's he talking about?
Those false preachers, those false brethren who are trying
to seduce you to compromise with the sword of my mouth. That's
the judgment of his word. The judgment of his word against
all, all who compromise the gospel. And so then he says in verse
17, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches. That's how he ends every one
of these letters, and he's talking, who's he talking to? Well, if
you got an ear, hear. If you have ears to hear, then
listen, that's who he's talking to. If you have eyes to see,
then see these things. If you've been born again by
the Spirit, that's who he's talking to, isn't it? That's who has
ears, and that's who has eyes. Those who are unregenerate, not
born again, they don't have ears and eyes spiritually. They may
have physical eyes and physical ears, but they don't have the
eyes and the ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
So he says, to him that overcometh, and you know who he's talking
about. He's talking about believers who are victorious in Christ
because Christ is the overcomer. He says, will I give to eat the
hidden manna. The hidden manna is the word
of God And it's hidden only to those who don't have eyes to
see and ears to hear. But you have eyes to see, he
says. You have ears to hear. And I'll give you that hidden
manna. You'll see things they don't see. You'll hear things
they don't hear. That's an amazing thing, isn't
it? Do you realize how blessed we are if we hear and see these
things? The hidden manna. And he says,
I will give him a white stone. Well, there's a lot of references
to that. I won't go into all of it because
it's in your lesson. He said, I'll give him a white stone,
and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving
he that receiveth. I've got in your lesson here,
in the Roman courts, between the judges and the accused, they
had an urn. And if they found the person,
after hearing the evidence, either for or against one who was accused. If the judges found the accused
guilty, they would place a black stone in the urn. And if they
found him not guilty, they'd put a white stone in that urn.
And that's what he's talking about, the white stone of judgment
that vindicates the people of God. I believe that's what he's
talking about. Now, some people reference this back to the breastplate
of the high priest and the urn and the thumen and all that.
I'm not going to go into all that. But here's what I believe he's
saying. And I believe because of, listen to it again. He said,
I'll give him a white stone That's the white stone meaning, the
white stone of judgment of righteousness that vindicates the people of
God. We stand in Christ. And God will not charge us. We're
not guilty. We're righteous in Him. We stand
on the word of God. And how do you know that? You've
got a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that
receiveth. What is that new name? Well, there's a lot of names
for believers in the Bible, for Christians. But it's a new name
that has to do with our justification before holy God. I'm righteous
in Christ. I'm washed clean from all my
sins. I'm a believer. I'm a sinner
saved by grace. I'm a child of God, a son of
God. I'm one who has within my possession
the power of the Holy Spirit. We could go through the scriptures
and see so many. of those names. All right.