Letter to Pergamum
Pastor Marq Toombs • July 05, 2020
Sermon Overview
REVELATION 2:12-17
Jesus’s letter to Pergamum was to a church that had compromised. They held fast to the name of Jesus yet they were lax in rooting out false teaching and religion. Jesus calls them to repent and clear pagan rituals from among them and putting a stumbling block before the people.
Sermon Transcript
Grace and peace be with you from the Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Marq, I'm one of the pastors here. And I'm happy to be with you this Lord's day, and have the privilege of entering into the Word of God with you on this Lord's day, and exploring a passage that, as you just heard, can seem to be a little bit challenging as we consider what Jesus has to say to the churches.
Several years ago, at the time of the Reformation, Johann Eck was challenging Martin Luther in a debate, and kept pressing him on why he was taking the view of penance that he took. And Martin Luther responded at one point to Eck by saying, "God once spoke through the mouth of an ass, perhaps he's about to do so again." And then he went on to make his case for why he was pushing against the view of penance that was held by the Roman Catholic Church.
Most pastors I know, at one point or another, feel that they can identify with Luther in making that statement. He was of course, referring to the story of Balaam and his donkey in the Book of Numbers, in which a donkey spoke to Balaam and stayed the prophet's madness. Luther considered himself to be such a beast of burden, a lowly messenger that was simply trying to do the Pope, and others, a favor. Well oftentimes, as we engage each other with the Scriptures, it may seem that the pastor is just out to get us, he's out to make life hard on us. But in this case it simply a donkey, a beast of burden, bringing a message of Christ to his people. In this letter that Jesus sent to the church in Pergamum, we see Jesus acting like a true shepherd.
Through all of these letters He has been giving the churches exactly what they need, when they need it. And in this case He comes to the church, and He reveals Himself as the one who has the sharp two-edged sword coming out of His mouth. If you remember back a few weeks ago, we saw the vision of Jesus that was revealed to John on the Island of Patmos. And a part of that vision showed a sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. That vision revealed Jesus to be the true prophet, priest, and king. And in this letter, He appears to the church in such a way. With the true and living, the active Word of God coming out of His mouth, for the sake of His church.
This is not the first time in the Scriptures that Jesus has appeared to His people with a sword. You can go back to the Old Testament in the time when King David numbered the people, and conducted a census against the will of God, because he wanted to rely on the weight and the force of the military strength of Israel. And he woke up one day to see the angel of the Lord standing with a sword drawn, over the City of Jerusalem. Revealing to David that the Lord was displeased. You go back even farther, at when Joshua was leading the people of God into the promised land, Joshua encounters the first enemy, which was not a Canaanite, but he encountered the angel of the Lord with a sword drawn, and forcing Joshua to bow with his face to the ground and give his allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. You go back even further, and then you see it was the angel of the Lord, that stood in the way of Balaam, as he was making his way towards Israel, to pronounce blessings or curses over them. He was on his way to make a deal with the enemy of Israel.
And so this image of Jesus appearing with the sword of the Spirit is not unusual. It might seem unusual to us, because we don't think of Jesus as being a sword-wielding king, and yet He is. In fact, the threat in this letter is that, if His people do not repent, He will come and wage war on them. And we'll get to that in just a moment. But what I want you to see here is that Jesus is writing to a church that is a mission outpost in Satan's territory. He says this is where Satan has his throne. And so it's the church planted in the midst of a hostile world. In fact, one of the leaders of that church, Antipas, had been martyred for the faith.
Interesting note about Antipas is he is held by both Roman Catholic traditions, and the Eastern Orthodox tradition as being a saint. A saint, because not only was he the Bishop of Pergamum, but he was martyred for the faith. His name, by the way, indicates that he was in fact a Protestant. His name means against everything. Antipas, against everything. And so they hold a Protestant up as a saint in their traditions. Antipas was against everything. He is contra mundum, living against the grain of the world, for the sake of Jesus and the Word of God. Imagine what it would be like to be a member of that church, or that community, and the leader of your church, the one that everyone looked to, was taken captive and then martyred in a brazen, a bronze bull. He was put to death, for the pains of his faith. You can see the reaction though, what happened in the church.
You would have people on one hand, who would always esteem him, as a model of faithfulness, as someone to follow and imitate with conviction. But on the other hand, there would be people who would say, “Wait a minute, maybe he was an extremist. Maybe it was his hardcore view of things that led him into that trouble.” And then you would have people, among the churches who would say, I don't wanna go there. I don't wanna give my life up for the faith, I don't wanna be that extreme, I don't wanna be marginalized in that way.
And so, that's where you enter in, you bring into the picture here, Balaam and Nico. The Balaamites and the Nicolaitans. Two groups of false teachers, two sects represented here, who were bringing alternative gospels into the community. Alternative gospels that are going to take the edge off the Gospel of Jesus, and make things kinder, and gentler, and softer, more accommodating to the culture and the world around us. And what are they preaching? What are they teaching, these false teachers that have entered into the community? Well, they are teaching things that we in America love to hear. They are teaching about money, sex, and power. Those are the three, how would you say this? Those are the three persons of the unholy trinity, that is at work in our culture. As it was at work in their culture. Money, sex, and power.
And we know that because, if you go to the story of Balaam, which Jesus expects that church to know, you see that Balaam was a prophet, who profited by prophesying. In other words he was a prophet for hire. He was going to go out and preach and teach whatever the highest bidder paid him to preach and teach. And that's what you see in the story of Balaam. He is called upon by the enemies of Israel to curse them, to bring curses upon them with the force of a prophetic message. And he waits it out, and it looks like he's really having a dark night of the soul. He asks the people to wait, Let's see what happens in the morning. And what he's actually trying to do is get the price to go up. He wants the price to go up. But time and time again, he declines to curse Israel, until finally he is challenged by the angel of the Lord, to not curse Israel, but to bless them.
And so against his own will, against his own instincts, in a public way, he pronounces blessings upon the people of God, and this irritates the king of the enemies of Israel. But in private, we learn as we read the narrative, in private we learn that he was counseling the king about ways that he could go about bringing Israel down. And the way he did that is by counseling the king to send his sexiest, and prettiest women among Israel, to seduce them and to lure them into false religion. To weaken their convictions. To bring them to their knees. And it worked for a time. Israel began to engage in that kind of idolatry, and the sexual perversions that came along with that plan. And a plague broke out among Israel. Pestilence came among the people, 24,000 died before the Lord got the attention of the community. Balaam knew what he was doing, in his day. He knew that sexuality is a powerful force in spiritual warfare. And what people do with their sexuality has a lot to say about how they're engaging in spiritual warfare.
Years ago I read an interview by Tim Keller and in that interview Keller says that oftentimes in his life, and of course I'm paraphrasing here, but oftentimes in his pastoral ministry, young people would go off to college, and then they would come back over the summer, and they would talk about how they were having a faith crisis. And they weren't sure if the Gospel was true, or if God existed, and they wanted to have these philosophical discussions. And where I'm going with this, and this part I can quote, is Keller would listen to these students, male and female, express their faith struggles to him and then he would cut straight to the heart of the issue and ask them in response, to their concerns: "Who are you sleeping with?" And it's like a splash of cold water in their faces. "Who are you sleeping with?" And he started asking and probing about their sexual activity. Why, because sexuality is a powerful force in spiritual warfare.
Balaam knew it, Jesus knows it, as he deals with the church at Pergamum. What are people doing? They're beginning to listen to Balaam, and the teachings of Balaam, and the teachings of the Nicolaitans. Why? Because it's all about money, sex, and power. Those teachers were telling the people what they wanted to hear. And if you follow the teachings of Balaam, you follow the teachings of the Nicolaitans, who are the victory people, the triumphalists of their day, you are probably going to stay out of trouble. In other words, you are not going to end up like Antipas, the extremist. The guy who held fast to the Word of God. The guy who was persecuted because he refused to cave in to the pressures of the culture. It used to be in our day, it used to be in our circles, I should say, that, to talk about election and predestination were among the more controversial things, you could talk about. You could get into an argument quickly over election and predestination, just by engaging other Christians in conversation. There was a time in my life when I could talk about baptism with friends, and get into deep heated conversations over baptism. Those things are mild compared to what we are facing in our day and age.
The third rail of conversation in our culture is sexuality. And anyone who follows Christ, or anyone who follows Antipas, in talking about sexuality the way the Bible does, will find themselves in deep water. Will find themselves, perhaps, in the flames of controversy. In other words, anyone who takes a stand on sexuality that is revealed to us in Scripture, and speaks clearly about marriage between one man and one woman, is going to find themselves in controversy. Anyone who takes a clear stand, no matter how compassionate it might be, a clear stand against homosexuality, and against gender transition, and against these other sexual disorientations that we are encountering in our world is going to find himself in trouble. Any pastor that preaches the truth revealed to God, revealed to us in the scripture and in nature on these matters is going to find himself canceled at some point. We live in cancel culture, and it's not a culture that encourages dialogue and conversation, you're simply canceled for having a view that is alternative to the dominant view of the culture.
This is a situation the Church of Pergamum faced, it's a situation in which they could hold the line on sexuality, they could hold the line on idolatry, they could hold the line on weakness and cross bearing, they could pursue those things as they were taught by Christ and by his ministers, but instead the temptation is to find alternative teachings that are a mixture of Jesus plus what do you want to do that becomes the new gospel, Jesus plus whatever you desire. And so you find that work in Church of Pergamum, of people who are struggling to follow Christ and Christ alone and bear up under the cross no matter how much scorn and shame in my bring, versus a people who are trying to find ways to accommodate the culture around them. It's not necessarily for the sake of the culture around them, it might be for that, but it might also be for the sake of, we just want to preserve our live, it's self-preservation, we don't want controversy, we don't want conflict, we don't want to end up like Antipas, that's faithful martyr who is like Jesus, but a little bit too much like Jesus if you know what I mean. And so you feel the temptation, you can relate to their temptation, can't you?
All of us have been bombarded with a variety of messages. You spend 30 seconds on social media, you're getting it, you watch your favorite sitcoms, you're getting it, your favorite music, doesn't matter. You can be with your best friends, and inside and outside the church we're all struggling to hold fast to Orthodox Christian teaching. It seems a little bit old-school and old-fashioned to talk this way, but we really do need to go back and hear the law and the gospel revealed to us in the Bible. And so what you have in Pergamum, in my imagination, it would shake out like this: I'm bringing our categories back to their situation. You have a conflict between the fundamentalists like Antipas and the progressives like the Balaamites and the Nicolaitans.
It's the age-old conflict and controversy that you find throughout Christian history, as the church goes from one end of the spectrum swinging back and forth on the pendulum as it were. Where do we find ourselves in our culture? What does RPC find itself as we work through these issues? On the one hand, we want to be a missional outpost in a hostile culture. We want to love our neighbor as ourselves. We want to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We went to hold fast to the word of God, we want to treat it as it actually is: the Word of God, and we believe that we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
And yet at the same time, we're finding that as we engage the culture, sometimes we have to resist, we have to stand against, we have to fight the good fight of the faith. And you can grow very weary in doing that kind of thing, can't you? This is where the Church of Pergamum was. Jesus has a lot of good to say about that church. He has a lot of good to say about that church, but he's identifying within that church some, you see the word in there twice, some do this, some do that, and that's the concern Jesus has, is that some among the church are buying into these false gospels, and they're beginning to influence the rest of the church, or they're beginning to weaken the witness of the church in the community. We see this in the United States of America, that you look at Christian denominations, you see Christian denominations on one side or the other on these issues, and again, the one example I'm pointing to today is on the issue of sex and sexuality.
That has become the litmus test of Orthodoxy in the eyes of our culture. We are considered the heretics for holding to what the scriptures reveal to us about marriage, about sex inside and outside of marriage, about sexual orientation and attraction. We are considered the heretics in the eyes of the world for holding true to what the scriptures say no matter how gracious and loving we might be. Now, I recognize that there are people within our community, there are families, there are friends around us who struggle with these issues, and I do want to speak a word of comfort and grace, I want to say that we love sinners the way Jesus loves sinners, we are sinners ourselves, and so, I'm not saying any of this with any venom or hatred, it's a matter of love to tell people the truth, it's a matter of love. Jesus takes these matters seriously, so seriously in fact, that he threatens the church with warfare.
I know, many of you are visiting or are you see a counselor that's well-known too many of you and that counselor likes to say Jesus comes to pick a fight, Jesus comes to pick a fight with you, and he's right about that. But if you listen to what Jesus said, it's more than that, isn't it? He doesn't just come to pick a fight here. He says, he will come and wage war. Jesus will come to wage war. Why does he come to wage war? He's coming to fight the sin that is at work in his community, among his people. He's coming to wage war against the flesh, the world and the devil. As what he invites us to participate in that warfare with him, it is a fight! And let me remind you that the fight is not first and foremost out there somewhere, the fight is first and foremost in here. We all have our own lusts, our own passions and desires, and we must wage war against those. The battlefield begins in our own heart. This is where the frontline of the war is, it is within each and every one of us.
So, it could be that you have these struggles over sexual issues in your own heart and mind. They say that it's every man's battle. I'm inclined to agree with that. But every man needs to fight that battle. It might be that sexuality is not your thing. Maybe it's just the unbridled pursuit of wealth and comfort. Maybe you're driven by a kind of covetousness where more is never enough. You've got to fight that battle in your own heart. It could be that you're tempted to idolize things that are otherwise very good, it could be your children, it could be your country, it could be anything that you idolize, you put more premium on that than is necessary and you make it an ultimate issue when it's not.
You got to fight idols in your own life. Whatever the idols are, whatever these gods of money, sex and power happened to be that are working within you and within me, we've got to fight those first. And then we can worry about the culture wars. 'Cause if we're not gonna do it at home, we're not gonna do it away from home. And this is what Jesus is saying to his church: you got to deal with this, you got to change your mind about it, change your behavior, change your life about it, and if you don't, if you refuse, if you want to put up resistance, he will come at you with a sword.
This is what we see again in the story of Balaam's donkey. The interesting thing about the sword motif is that Balaam is riding this donkey and it's a reckless course and he's going his own way, he thinks he can just get away with it. And that's he is pursuing his own course, the Lord opposes him by having a sword drawn. Balaam doesn't see that but the donkey does. Balaam is so irritated with his donkey that he jumps off of it and threatens the donkey. He's beat it three times and that's not enough for him, he actually says to the donkey: I wish that I had a sword so I could kill you right now! And shortly after that the eyes of Balaam are opened up and what does he see? He sees the angel of the Lord with a sword drawn in his hand. He realizes his life is under siege, he is under threat because of his reckless way.
What Jesus is saying to the church in very subtle terms in a Biblical theological reading of the text, he is saying to the church, Look, I've got my sword out, it's in my mouth, and I can be for you or I can be against you. He's reminding the church and we're reminded today that the word of God is living and active, it is sharper than any double-edged sword and it pierces and it divides and they can get down to the nitty-gritty and that nothing in all of creation is hidden from God's sight. So when Jesus says, I will come and wage war against some of you, he doesn't mean he's going to wage war on the whole entire church, he means he's going to wage war on those individuals that refused to let go of these false gospels, that refuse to repent of their own deeply rooted sins, he's coming to wage war against them, and he knows how to distinguish among his people between those who follow him with a whole heart and those who do not.
So this gives us pause, doesn't it? It causes each of us to consider our own life, consider where we stand with the Lord and consider how he will engage us with His Word. I don't want to end on that note, I want to end with the promises that he makes. And I recognize that in the last week or so I haven't spent enough time looking at the promises but these are too good to overlook or to pass up. What is it about us that pursues, why do we pursue money, sex, and power the way we do?
There's a deep desire in us, there's a craving, there is an unsatisfied expectation within us that we want more. And there's something about pursuing things that no one else sees and getting things that no one else has, it really drives us to feel extra-special about ourselves, because we have something, we've achieved something that no one else gets to have. Jesus gets under all of that, he gets behind all of those things with these promises, listen to what he says: To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. Amazing promises. What is this hidden manna? What is this white stone? What is this new name?
Well, the cheater Sunday school answer is it's Christ, he's going to give you himself over and over again in a variety of ways. He's going to give you his flesh and blood for your life, he's going to give you his name, he's going to give you himself, a white stone upon which you can build your life. Those are some ways to look at it. But to put things in context, I think it's important to see that there's more to it than that. For example, in the Roman Empire the white stone was sort of like the food stamp of the day. When there were long lines and people needed bread, they were given a white stone, 'cause they were citizens and they could go get what they needed, because they had a white stone. In other contexts, the white stone was given to victors at sporting events that showed that they had overcome their opponents and that they had won the race, and so they're given a white stone that they can then flash to people: I'm a victor, that's what this town shows. I'm a victor, a conqueror, not like you losers out there, I have this stone.
In another context, it was given as a token or a pass for admission into a banquet. It gave you the right to be there, was your invitation, it had your name on it, and so you had a right to be there, VIP, I'm with the King. What is Jesus saying to us? He's enticing us away from idolatry, enticing us away from the things of this world, the food of idols, and he's saying, Come to my banquet, come to my banquet, overcome your enemies, overcome your lusts and passions, overcome your own desires, get over yourself, and I'll give you everything you ever dreamed of, everything you ever needed or wanted and more, I'll give you all of me. And I'll give you a right to sit at my table with all the other victors and all the other champions and overcomers. You'll be numbered among the mighty men, no matter how weak and broken you are, you'll be numbered among the mighty men, because you overcame. And what would your name be? It'll be a secret between you and God, who has his own name for you, his own way of calling you out to remind you that you belong here.
That's really good news, isn't it? He promises you things that only he can deliver, and unlike the gods of this world that promise you things that they could never deliver, he delivers himself to you, he gives himself to you and all the blessings that come with it. In your fight against sin, in your struggles in your own life, in your battles against the false gospels that are bombarding you, I encourage you to cling to the Word of God, listen to the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. Man does not live on bread alone, he lives on every word that comes from the mouth of Jesus.
Let us pray together.
