This point children in kindergarten in first grade are welcome to a primary church. That's what you do in the rest of us Do I have video? Hello, there you Let's pray Father, I pray that you would come this morning and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf I pray that you would teach us. It's been a while since we've been back in Revelation I pray that you would just make things clear today. I pray that you bring us up the speed I pray that you would be in my head and in my thinking and my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking Jesus name we pray these things amen and amen Well, it's hard to believe it's been three weeks since I've been here and preached in Revelation on the other hand Time flies when you're in a developing country with food poisoning. So As We can you know it has been three weeks. We were about six Six messages into the series on Revelation. So we got to do a little bit of review to sort of bring us up to speed And then we're going to jump right into the third church of seven the church in Pergamum So first thing we have to think through is what kind of
Literature is a book of Revelation and you remember I told you that of all the biblical literature Revelation and some sense is different on the other hand. It's really just a hybrid It's a hybrid of Apocalypse and if you remember what Apocalypse was Apocalypse simply means to unveil something It's sort of like looking behind the curtain. So that's one form. It also was a prophecy Remember that and what a prophecy does in the Bible most of the times is not predict things What prophecy is for in the Bible generally speaking is to persuade us of something usually to some moral end In other words, it's usually trying to persuade us to repent of sin or it's trying to persuade Persuade us in order to have faith or to believe the promises of God or something So the book of Revelation on one hand is unveiling something on the other hand It's trying to persuade us of something and finally it's just a letter I mean, it sounds odd to say it's just a letter because it's it's quite odd if you think of it in those terms But it really is remember John opens this book by saying John to the seven churches who are in Asia So it's one letter to seven churches and we started a few weeks ago at least a few weeks ago when I was here last looking at these churches there were seven of them remember seven is the complete number Biblically speaking so he could have written to eight churches He could have written to 12 he could have written to five But most people think the reason he chose seven besides the representative of certain issues in the church It also they represent all churches So each letter if you look at just the letters in here they are addressed to a particular church But they always close with here with the spirit says to the church as plural So what was the purpose of the book of Revelation if you remember it was pretty simple as well That the purpose of the book of Revelation is simply to teach us that Jesus on one hand has one in the past So when you read the book of Revelation you see a lot about what Jesus has done in fact a lot of what people read and think that will come in the future is already done Because what the book of Revelation is trying to persuade us of over and over again is that Jesus is one the victory over sin and death But on the other hand there is some stuff that's probably in the future and so he is not only one the victory over sin and death in the past But he will culminate everything all of creation will be reconciled unto him someday in the future He will win in the end But maybe more important for us and for the churches now is the fact that he is winning That even now Jesus is winning people to himself even now Jesus is building his church even now Jesus is active in his church We tend to think of you in the church that we're just here by ourselves and that Jesus is in heaven waiting until the final day when he will come to get us When in fact, we learned from the book of Revelation that Jesus walks him in the midst of the churches He knows what's going on because he's present by his spirit So with all of that said where are we now so far what we've looked at first we looked at John's vision in chapter one And if you remember when you look at John's vision He turns around and he hears a voice and he sees Jesus but he doesn't see Jesus The Carpenter or Jesus the crucified. He sees this grand figure from the Old Testament Actually, he sees a grand figure that sort of pieces of the Old Testament different images from the Old Testament Whether it's brass feet or flaming eyes or a sword coming out of his mouth And the reason that that vision is so important is not just because it it grounds us in the Old Testament But also because each of the letters to the seven churches open with part of that vision and And the part of the vision that you as used to open the letters is also a clue to what the solution is to that church's problems So if you remember the first church we looked at was Ephesus And remember Ephesus's primary problem was that they had lost their first love. They didn't care for those outside the church They cared about doctrine. They were orthodox They had everything all their ducks in a row on one hand on the other hand. They didn't care about those outside and And so the very opening line for them is he who stands them in the midst of the lamp stands So you know there's an issue with the lamp stands or the church's witness the next church we looked at was Smyrna And Smyrna didn't really Jesus didn't have any complaint about them But they were experiencing some manner of persecution and Jesus wanted to remind them that I'm the first in the last and That they were basically they needed to hang in there They needed to conquer through the gospel and so that leads us now to the third church at least in the list and that church is Pergamum and on one hand There's not a lot said about Pergamum on the other hand. It's a pretty important church It was the most important city in the province of Asia Minor in fact So as we look consider of what we know about Pergamum for the whole province of Asia Minor it was the capital city In other words if you need some kind of analogies so far we've looked at the church in Ephesus and that would be like What in America would be Manhattan? It was very cosmopolitan. It was a financial center. It was all these kinds of things Smyrna maybe Or not Alabama, but Atlanta maybe a little bit smaller than New York, but still a decent city and Pergamum would be maybe the equivalent of washing in DC For the province of Asia Minor and the the symbol for the city of Pergamum was the sword That's going to become important later and also the city of Pergamum had the power the Pro-Consul there had the power to execute people In other words, he had the power to order executions if he thought you deserved it So it was also big governmental center Rome did a lot of business there It was also a big intellectual center as you talk about Pergamum It reminds me in some sense of Tallahassee Florida where I went to school not because Tallahassee was big and bustling But because it was a capital city, but it was also like a university town The only library in the ancient Near East that was bigger than the library at Pergamum was Alexandria Pergamum had about 200,000 volumes they estimate and in fact I think the story is apocryphal, but supposedly the parchment and the word Pergamum and parchment they have the same sort of root Words most people think that parchment was invented in Pergamum And the apocryphal story is that they tried to recruit the librarian from Alexandria And the Alexandria didn't like that and so they cut them off their supply of papyrus and they had to come up with something new So they invented parchment that's probably not true, but it's interesting nonetheless Between the the the influence of the government in Pergamum And the influence of the the religions in Pergamum it made it an extremely hard place for Christians to live and I'll show you how religious was it On one hand, it was it was a place that had an altar to Zeus In fact, not only did it have an altar to Zeus the king of the gods, but the altar to Zeus has actually been replicated throughout history Most notably Adolf Hitler replicated the altar to Zeus in order to to speak from when he was speaking to the crowds There are a couple other historical figures that have done that Also Athena was the patron goddess of Pergamum the goddess of war And if you wonder you know was it a fun place to be Well Dionysus was also one of the patron gods and Dionysus in Greek is known as Bacchus The god of wine the god of Partying And then finally more famous maybe than any of those three people used to come from all over the ancient Near East to visit the temple of a Sculuppius And notice I put the whole statue there because what's important about the temple of a Sculuppius is the snake Why is that so important you see in the ancient Near East and the Asia Minor they would think when they thought a Sculuppius They would think that and when we think a Sculuppius we think that in fact Modern medicine gets its symbology from the temple of a Sculuppius Which was a healing place it was a place where you would go from all over the ancient Near East in order to be healed of your diseases And except the problem was if you're like Indiana Jones it was full of snakes you had to go and let the snakes crawl over you So people came and so when you begin to think where Jesus opens up and says You know I know you where you live in Satan's hometown and where Satan's thrown is there are a lot of different options for that Some people think it was the the altar to Zeus other people think it was this Temple to a Sculuppius because it was all about snakes serpents say get it More important than any of those however Was the temple to Caesar Augustus and other Roman emperors In other words programum was the first place where a Roman a living Roman emperor Actually had a temple built for himself so in programum More than any other place if you remember from the intro part of the problem with the churches in Asia Minor is they were They were probably being pinched between Jewish leaders who didn't like them and the Romans who expected them to participate in this cult to the emperor In other words, they would have to either say Caesar is Lord or they would say Jesus is Lord Saying Caesar is Lord would have benefits saying Jesus is Lord could get you in a lot of trouble And in programum more than any other place because the influence of the government because the influence of religion because the influence of the temples to the emperors programum more than any other place Was a place where Christians felt pinched we're gonna see that in just a minute now What's the situation in programum? Well, first let me give you an outline Basically the outline to all these letters is more or less the same. There's an opening And the opening is something that's gonna give us a clue to the rest of the letter. There's a situation There's a problem. There's a solution. And then there's problem better promises And if you want to make that into three points is that makes you feel better? You could just do a situation problem solution But either way that all the letters basically are laid out this way And so what's the opening clue that we have here Verse 13 says into the angel the church in programum writes the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword And the key there is the the phrase sharp two-edged sword if you remember from the opening vision the sharp two-edged sword comes out of Jesus mouth And if you remember the rest of the Bible basically it has something to do with God's word and particularly the word of judgment And so Jesus opens up and says to him to him who has ears the word of him who has the two sharp two-edged sword Now it's interesting because remember the city of programum the symbol for that city was the sword the pro council had the power of the sword And among other things when this letter opens up it says that there's someone who has a bigger sword than the exists in programum There is someone who sword is more important than the sword and program And that's the sword of Jesus. It's the one that comes out of his mouth But what does it tell us it tells us that basically there's one of two things that are going to be addressed here Because the problem is going to be solved by what comes out of Jesus mouth There's either a problem with orthodoxy or a problem with orthopraxy I put dashes in there on purpose orthodoxy means basically something like straight teaching or straight doctrine And orthopraxy means something like straight practice or correct practice Right? Praxy practice and so the problem in in programum basically is either going to be a problem of orthodoxy wrong thinking Or a problem of orthopraxy wrong practice and Jesus is going to call them back according to the word of his mouth Okay I had to put this You know before you you You get into you have to think that the cities and the ancient Near East had They don't have chambers of commerce But they wanted people to come to their city and they wanted people to do business in their city And I just wonder what this letter did to commerce in that city Right imagine you know visit programum where Satan dwells right you can even sit in his throne if you want I just think it like they probably didn't like it very much at least the Romans And so what's the the situation?
He says in verse 13 he says I know where you dwell Where Satan's throne is yet you hold fast to my name and you did not deny my faith Even in the days of antifist my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells first thing I want you to notice is this He says I know where you dwell Remember we said at the beginning when we started this series that Jesus because he's in the midst of the churches all the time He knows what's going on in the churches and what Jesus says to them is I know where you dwell We're Satan dwells And he says not only that but you were you dwell that's where Satan's throne is Now why does he open up this way because you notice it isn't a compliment He doesn't say you know you do this well or you've done this right he says I know where you dwell We're Satan's throne is And it reminds me You know when I work for for Eli Lilly. I used to sell medicine for ADHD And you know, I would always tell doctors to ask their To help as they coach the parents and the best question to ask someone with ADHD is not what were you thinking Because if you say what were you thinking they say no, I don't know Ask them what were you not thinking about And I say well wasn't thinking about ABC and D but on top of that It's not only what were you not thinking about the question is when they when people start to talk Let's say for example that I had ADHD and I got in trouble with my wife and I started trying to explain myself If she's smart which she is she'll say is that an explanation or an excuse
And in other words, Tama your own particular mental disorders might be an explanation for why you are so frustrating But they are not an excuse for why you are so frustrating And what Jesus is saying here is before pergamum it could respond if you will He's saying to them. I know the explanation for why things are hard, but is it an excuse? In other words, what we're going to see is pergamum the church in pergamum was extremely tempted to compromise In Jesus is telling them right up front. I understand what it's like That out of all of Asia Minor where it's difficult to be a Christian You live right in the center of Satan's throne where you live that's where Satan lives In fact, Satan's throne is right in the middle of pergamum. I get that Now, what is Satan's throne? It depends who you talk to. This is one of the passages this this letter to pergamum where there are lots and lots of different Interpretations lots of opinions. Of course, I'm going to give you the correct one this morning What does it mean some people think it it's because the the altar to Zeus was there and that was the throne of Satan Some people think it was because the temple to a scapulous Sculpheus with the the the serpents was the throne of Satan Personally, I think it has to do with more with the Roman Empire and the Roman cult That the Romans were the ones who were persecuting them the Romans were the ones who were bringing down the heat And the Romans were the ones that were causing them to compromise and remember we talked a few weeks ago that that all evil Ultimately has its root back in the person and work of Satan He's constantly at war with God's people And so I think the world powers that the the Roman Empire coming against them That's probably what he means by the fact that you dwell in Satan's throne room So what's the problem then? He says in verse 14. He says but I have a few things against you You have some there who hold the teaching of valum In in verse 15. He says so also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolations
Going back to verse 13 for a minute remember there's one person. We know who has killed Antiphas So it's very it was very hard But what is it that would cause people to compromise what is it that would cause them to to To not live out the gospel and basically Let me read to you verse 14 the full verse He says but I have a few things against you. There's some hold the teachings of valum who taught valum to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel So that they might eat food sacrifice to idols and practice sexual immorality So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolations First of all, I always laugh sort of at this verse because Jesus says I have a few things against you. It's it sounds so casual But it's not Remember numbers chapter 22 bayluck they hired valum to curse Israel and he didn't do it and they sort of went back and forth Three times he blessed them and eventually he led the sons of Israel to commit adultery at least that was Moses view of it And so we don't know exactly what the teaching of valum was But we do know that by the time of the New Testament the teaching if someone was a teacher of valum It was almost a technical term and it was a technical term for anyone who led people astray Just like valum led people astray. So whoever leads people astray is a teacher of valum But we also have a clue here of what was taught And it had something to do with eating food sacrifice to idols and sexual immorality Which makes sense because if you remember the big issue in the New Testament for Gentiles who were coming in Was what should they do and not do particularly in Acts 15 should they be circumcised or not And remember all the apostles got together and they said they don't need to be circumcised but We want you to do just these two things don't eat meat sacrifice to idols And don't engage in sexual immorality Now why would that be so important that they not eat meat sacrifice to idols And it wasn't necessarily that they bought it from the store and it had been sacrificed and they didn't know it The issue was participating in a feast where someone had sacrificed meat to the idols and they were going to eat it right then Because to eat the meat sacrifice to the idols even in the ancient areas was thought to you were partaking of that God You were actually becoming one with that God by eating that meat And also there there were temple prostitutes and everything else and so the question is should a Christian do that kind of stuff The apostles said no apparently there were some people in the church who said you know it's really hard outside And if you do those things when you're outside as long as you don't mean it it really isn't that big of a deal Really what matters is what is in your heart And what John is saying here is Jesus is saying through John is it actually doesn't matter And the teaching of the Nicolations what is that that's one of the biggest mysteries in the New Testament It either is another way of saying teachers of baylam or It is some kind of noctisism and by noctisism I just mean that they separated Body from spirit and what you did with your body didn't matter as long as your spirit was was sure your spirit was clean In other words you could engage in sexual immorality you could engage in eating meat sacrifice idols and since it was in the flesh It really wasn't that big a deal In other words some in the church and Pergamum were teaching Compromise with the outside world is okay And what is Jesus say to them? I mean well what let me look at another way to look at the problem The church in Pergamum was really fighting a two front war On one hand the war Coming from the outside was with antagonist people who Whether it was Romans or Jews or anyway who from the outside were persecuting them So that was one thing on the other hand on the inside of the church they had compromisers So outside they were being attacked and they actually stood up well against those attacks But what they didn't stand up well against Were those inside the church who would compromise? In other words they they were courageous when people came at them from the outside But on the inside of the church they were not courageous at all and to be honest with you I've seen that I've been in several churches in the course of my life and that's a pretty common issue In other words you you look outside and you see all the evil that's outside and you say what we're gonna take a stand against this this this and this But the question is do you look inside and say we're also gonna take a stand against gossip Self-righteousness Compromising like in this case we don't tend to do that as much So what's the solution? Well the solution's pretty simple He says repent He says if not I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth Now I want you to notice here who this word of this exertation to repent is addressed to In other words, he doesn't say there are compromisers in your church There are people who are teaching this and there are people who are teaching that and I want them to repent the rest of the church you guys are okay But what I want you to do is I want you to pick out the sinners And those people need to repent He doesn't say that He says to the whole church repent And what he means there is that the whole church is responsible for the fact that people in the church are compromising And at some level what he's really getting at here is the fact that this church in Pergamum was not doing any kind of discipline And by discipline I don't mean harshness. I mean by discipline just the very basics of discipline which you start by telling someone the truth In fact a couple session meetings ago with our elders someone asked me tell me what can we do to support you as a pastor? What's the best thing we could do? And I didn't even have to think about it I said just tell the truth And I said that not because they have any problem with not telling the truth I said it by way of encouragement Because one of the issues in any church is on the outside it's sort of easy to look out and tell the truth It's a lot harder in the church to tell the truth when you see something happening because you don't want conflict You don't want you want people to like you you want people to to not be angry at you and yet Sometimes you've got to do it In fact one of the blessings I think you as a congregation have is having elders who are willing to engage in the process of church discipline Now by the way discipline is quite different than punishment Churches in the body we don't punish anywhere in the Bible Punishment has to do with judicial Things and punishment is actually born by Jesus on the cross Jesus bore punishment The purpose of discipline is always restoration But there's a warning here and what's the warning? You see churches ten toward one end or the other of the spectrum on one end you have the church at Ephesus Remember the church at Ephesus was so concerned about doctrine and so concerned about orthodoxy that when people came in and taught something Bogus they just kicked them out of the church and remember when Jesus said to them He said the thing that I like about you Ephesus is you hate the teaching of the Nicolations which I also hate On the other hand they were so concerned about their doctrine and so concerned about people doing the right things and believing the right thing That they weren't loving at all they had no outward face Pergamum in some sense it almost seems like they had the exact opposite problem what you see in churches too That anything is okay as long as people are willing to come to church if we just get people in here nothing else really matters And so there's no discipline there's no real confrontation of sins in our lives and therefore there's no real restoration and so the tension Is somewhere in between In other words, how do you repent of of compromising for the gospel without becoming unloving? How do you be outwardly faced without also becoming just indistinguishable from the outside world? Well, that's the the question and that's the the the exhortation to the church in program And that's the exhortation to our church as well. That's the exhortation to every church We're not just to remember like Ephesus our first love and be outwardly faced But we're also to remember inside the church where to be outwardly faced toward each other And if someone is going down is in center someone is going down sort of this this road where they're really compromising is it a loving thing to not say anything You know one of the biggest myths in our common culture, I think is that one of the the highest value in our culture is toleration I just read an article by DA Carson and he traced the difference in definition in the word tolerance over the years The word tolerance used to mean You're willing to accept the fact that other people have different views than you I hope everyone in this room would do that But what it has come to mean even in some dictionaries is that you believe that people with other views than yours are equally as valid In other words, there is no difference between this view or that view when in fact if the gospel is true, there actually is That there is one mediator between God and man. That is the Lord Jesus Christ That's the only way to be saved and we must cling to that So what's the what are the promises attached here Verse 17 he says He who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches To the one who conquers. I will give some of the hidden mana I'll give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it Now this is one of the verses that I Think I found about 12 different Interpretations or 12 different opinions that were I mean 12 drastically different opinions about what this means and of course The correct one is just what I'm getting ready to tell you Um Notice I just point out he says here he was an ear here with the spirit says to the churches that every church is supposed to consider this But also the promises is to the one who conquers. He says I will give hidden mana I'll give him a white stone with the new name written on that stone that no one knows except the one who receives it Now the problem I think we run into is when you try and take these terms all separate from one another Because when they're separate from one another you can you can come up with lots and lots and lots of different Interpretations lots of different views, but when you put them all together They really you you really only come up with one thing and that's basically This eschatological or n times feast This supper that's laid out even before you today that Jesus says whoever conquers you're going to participate in this with me And so when Jesus says I'll give him some of the hidden mana. Why is the mana hidden? Remember in the old testament mana fell and Israel partook of it and in the new testament Jesus basically says that I am the mana I am the bread But you know what the bread the mana is not hidden mana unless you have eyes to see in other words if you have eyes to see It's not hidden anymore. It's hidden from those on the outside But if you have eyes to see you realize that Jesus is the bread of life He is the one that feeds us and what about this white stone With a new name written on the stone Twelve different ways that people used to use these stones And I think the ones that make the most sense in this context First of all people when you were invited to a great feast At some wealthy person's house in programum Or in any of the cities you would be given a white stone that would be your token In other words it would be your mission ticket to get into that feast Not only that but also in their court system When juries would sit and they would hear a case They would pass around a basket and if you thought someone was innocent You put a white stone in the basket and he thought they were guilty you put a black stone in the basket Those are the two that seem to make the most sense that because we've been forgiven for our sins Because we've been acquitted because of the person and work of Jesus we now are admitted to this feast That he gives us everything necessary to enter into this feast And there's one more thing and it's what's this issue of new name? What does mean to have a new name It either means one of two things it either means this new name that no one knows is the name of Jesus That's that's applied to us and that would be correct or it means literally that you are given a new name That only you know It's it's probably a little bit of both but I lean more toward the new name I'd trouble reading this story earlier in the first service You see when Jesus says he'll give you a new name. Why would he have to give you a new name? If you remember Jamie's call to worship this morning was from Isaiah 62 He said you will no longer be called forsaken But you will be called what? My delight is in her In other words gods all about changing people's names because the names that we are either given by other people Or the name that we tend to call ourselves outside of the gospel of Jesus is almost always wrong You know, it's cruising that the preaching today website I came across this article from the associated press And the title of the article it's October 2010 it says unwanted Indian girls receive a new name In October 2011 the associated press were in a deeply moving story about the name changing ceremony for girls in Mumbai, India At birth the 285 girls have been named Nakusa or Nakushi which means unwanted in the primary Indian language of Hindi The name unwanted is given to girls across India where families often value sons more than daughters and as a result families Female babies are boarded and neglected at an alarming rate But the renaming ceremony was an attempt to give the girls a new identity the article reported the 285 girls wearing their best outfits With braids braids and bows in their hair lined up to receive certificates with their new names along with small flower bouquets Some of the girls chose new names that mean prosperous beautiful good or even very tough One girl who had been named Nakusa by her grandfather who was disappointed in her at birth said Now in school my classmates and friends will be calling me by this new name And that makes me very happy I mean how can you not get choked up with that kind of story on one hand On the other hand There's at least 285 people in this room who think the same thing about themselves That you walk around saying I'm unwanted. I'm unloved. I'm un cared for and yet here's with the gospel of Jesus says That is absolutely false But he doesn't just say you're not unwanted you wanted he changes your name We're gonna sing a song at the end of the service today called I will change your name that you're no longer called per second But you're called my delight is in her You're no longer called faithless miserable center, but you're called son or daughter that God is all about changing our name So it isn't just that we're invited to the feast it isn't just that we're forgiven of our sins But in fact he changes our name and so as you're going through the week this week Maybe get some thought what is what are the names that you think of yourself? What are the names that you call yourself stupid disorganized loser lazy What is it? And then remind yourself that Jesus has given you a new name Think about that lame fray Father I pray that as we partake of the Lord's table even now that we would partake of this hidden man And we would rejoice in the fact that you've given us a new name on one hand We all bear the same name and that is the name of Jesus on the other hand because each of us struggles with different things There are different issues and different names I would imagine that you've given to all of us that we need to hear I pray that you would speak that word to us In Christ's name we pray amen And amen