In the sermon 'Pergamos and the Perils of Compromise,' Paul Carrington discusses Revelation 2:12-17, focusing on the church in Pergamos. The sermon highlights the church's ability to hold fast to faith despite residing where 'Satan's throne is,' yet critiques its tolerance of false teachings and idolatry, drawing parallels to the doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. Carrington uses historical examples, such as Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy, to illustrate the dangers of compromise. The sermon emphasizes that compromise is a more insidious threat to the church than persecution. It calls for repentance, framing it as an essential practice for Christians, and outlines the promises for those who overcome, including hidden manna and a white stone with a new name, symbolizing communion with Christ and absolution. The sermon urges believers to confront and eradicate sin in their lives, using the zeal of Phineas as a model, and warns against the spiritual dangers of modern idols like sexual immorality and entertainment.

The sermon text is Revelation chapter 2 verses 12 through 17. And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword, I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. And you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith, even in the days in which antipas, my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

Repent, or else I will come to you quickly, and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat, And I will give him a white stone and on the stone a new name written which no one knows Except him who receives it Let's pray Our great God we come before you in the name of your Son. We thank you that you have called us together here to be your church in this place. And God, as your Word is opened and we hear this letter written to another church in another time in another place Lord may we Not feel only the distance, but God may we feel that this is in a way written to us because your word is to us May we see these warnings as being given to us.

May even these threatenings be seen to be given to us. And these promises, God, may they be seen as given to us. Lord, I pray that as our brother comes and brings this message today, that you would use it to strengthen those of us who need to be strengthened. May it convict us if there is hidden sin that needs to be repented of. And God, may you do all of this so that your church may be purified and that your name may be honored as holy in this place.

God speak to us, Open up hearts to receive this truth, and give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. In Christ's name, Amen. Well, good morning. This morning we'll be spending time with the Church of Pergamos. And I've entitled this message, Pergamos and the Perils of Compromise.

And I want to start us off by an illustration going back into the 1930s, going back to Europe. And it appeared that Europe was now about to enter into war once again, that the Great War, World War I, had just ended a short, less than 20 years ago before. And the horrors of this war were still fresh in the minds and in the hearts of those that had lived through it. You may have heard the name Adolf Hitler. Under Adolf Hitler, the Nazi German nation was making strides by leaps and bounds with alarming speed.

They had in 1936 taken a piece of land bordering Germany called the Rhineland. And then in 1938 they decided to take Austria. And all Europe was watching, again, impacted by what had happened in World War I, and perhaps a little bit gun-shy. And so, the Prime Minister of Britain, his name was Neville Chamberlain, He arranged a meeting with Adolf Hitler. He traveled to Germany and he was concerned, you know, the British Empire, it was spread already too thin.

The saying is that the sun never sets on the British Empire because they had places in really all parts of the world and they were, he was absolutely desperate to avoid another war perhaps personal to him as he had lost the Sun in World War one and he the last thing he wanted was to plunge his country into another war so he met with Hitler in person and after the meeting he made this comment, here is a man who can be relied upon when he has given his word. And with confidence, he came back into London and he made a public address to the entire nation. And he says, my good friends, for the second time, a British prime minister has returned from Germany, bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." And he ended his speech.

You see, what had happened was Neville Chamberlain, as a prime minister of Great Britain, had adopted a foreign policy by the name of appeasement. And what that means is it's a policy of making concessions in order to avoid conflict, to do whatever you can to just keep the peace. And this was the reality behind this, is that this very policy was the thing that actually ended up encouraging further Nazi aggression. You see, with every gamble that Hitler took, he saw that he could get away with it. And so he would go further and further.

And so in 1939, he ended up not only taking Rhineland and Austria, but then he waded into Czechoslovakia and took that. And then toward the end of 1939, he ended up taking over Poland. Well, of course, by now you couldn't deny where things were going. And so Britain ended up being plunged into what would become the Second World War. You see, the Second World War, it started with appeasement.

But it ended six years later as the most bloody war in the history of the world. 56.4 million lives were lost. The most ever. The entire continent of Europe was absolutely ravaged. But you see this doesn't only happen with nations and their foreign policy.

You see this is also sometimes a strategy that churches employ as well. Just keep everything surface if we keep things vague enough and don't actually pinpoint sins and difficulties that somehow we'll just be able to kick the can down the road and we'll be able to continue to prosper. Well, so far in our study of the book of Revelation, we've looked at the church that was in Ephesus, and we found a church that was very, very sturdy. They were uncompromising, but they had a cooling heart for their Lord, and the Lord challenged them and rebuked them for that. We spent some time about 50 miles up the road at a church in Smyrna.

It was an impoverished church. It was a persecuted church. But in the eyes of the Lord, they were rich. And so these were the first two churches. Well now we're at the third church and these next three churches we have Pergamos today Thyatira next week and sometime in the future.

We'll we'll talk about Sardis We have much to learn about the the dangers that are lurking just below the surface. The Lord speaks very, very specifically and directly to those and the dangers of compromise and the falling asleep that happens sometimes in churches over the course of time. And I think what will become very clear to us today is that the Lord isn't just interested in salvation, in the sense of getting you saved, but He's intensely concerned and equally passionate about sanctification, the working out of your life as a Christian and as pastors were different as pastors all three of us are very different But where we're laser focused and where we feel the Lord has directly commissioned us as pastors is to shepherd the church away from darkness Towards the light from things that are wrong and evil, to things that are true and good. And so that is our absolute unapologetic stance, and that's what we hope to do, not just today, but every single time that we get into the pulpit. We want to operate with the same intense concern the Lord Jesus had in order to instruct and help us along really with an eye to Him whom we're going to give an account one day.

And so this morning we're going to see specifically how the Lord Jesus, how He wages war against sin in the church. And we're going to be left once again with the words pointed out, not just to Pergamos, not just to these seven churches, but to all churches and all people for all time. Those words are, he who has an ear to hear. Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And so, by way of introduction, I want to consider two things this morning.

I want to talk just briefly about the nature of the church. The nature of the church, and then also what are the dangers to the church? Well, the nature of the church, you know, what do you think of when you say, let's go to church or, you know, I belong to a church. Is it a building? Is it a place that you go?

Well, the word church in the New Testament is really a word, ecclesia, which means a called out congregation. And this will be important for us to understand as we go through our study this morning. It's really a gathering of people that have been called out of something into something else. Not necessarily physically, but their entire identity has been changed. And John MacArthur says it like this.

He says, It is important that the church today understand the definition of ecclesia. The church needs to see itself as being called out by God. If the church wants to make a difference in the world, it must be different from the world. Well if that's the nature of the church, what is the ever-present danger that the church is facing? I want to take us back just briefly because most of us were here a couple of years ago when we were going through the book of Nehemiah.

And so Nehemiah exists less than 500 years before this letter was penned by John dictated by our Lord Christ and and this man was used so mightily you can remember how mightily he was used by God to restore the city of Jerusalem and not only the city but the temple as well he gave absolutely everything he could do you remember the passion Do you remember what he faced on a regular basis? He gave of himself. He took immeasurable risks. And he was constantly being assaulted by really three men, particularly, that kind of began to build some sort of coalition against them. Their names were Sambalit, Tobiah, and Gesham.

And so daily he would be facing these unreal levels of persecution. And after 12 years he finished the project. They did the unthinkable. They built the wall in 52 days around the city that had been broken down he goes back to the kingdom because he was a cup bearer for the king and after that period of time he comes back 12 years later to Jerusalem and you could imagine him much like how the Lord Jesus Christ is walking up and down in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. What do we find?

We find Nehemiah walking through and inspecting Jerusalem. He's a type of Christ. And what does he find in his inspection? Well, what he finds is that the adversary, Tobiah, was not only a resident in the city of Jerusalem, But he actually had a place of prominence there. It says this, Then after certain days I obtained leave from the king, and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that the high priest, Eliashib, had done for Tobiah in preparing a place for him in the courts of the house of God.

And it grieved me bitterly." That means so much, exceedingly, so mightily. Therefore, I threw out all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. And so what you're saying, well, why are we pointing to Nehemiah? As I said, he's a type of Christ. But behold, a better.

We have a greater than Nehemiah that's before us this morning. And where God was jealous for Jerusalem, though it was funded with the coffers of a foreign and a pagan king, how much more jealous do you think God is of the new Jerusalem that's been funded by the blood of His own begotten Son? And That's the theme that we have before us here this morning. This this letter to the Church of Pergamos is geared to be a wake-up call to a church that is in crisis. It's not a message like Neville Chamberlain that says, go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

That's not what the Lord is saying here to us today. It's written specifically to Christians who are on a dangerous trajectory toward the world and perhaps some of them already deeply enmeshed in the world. And so what is the world? Well, it's not the mountains, it's not the sky, it's not those types of things, but what the world really is in a nutshell is it's the thing that it draws the heart away from God. In the Bible we find many times how it's referenced And John in his epistle really characterizes, he says, it's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, it's the pride of life.

It has to do with what you set your heart on. That's the thing that you end up worshiping. And so my hope is as we not only go into the book of look at this letter to Pergamos But as we go into this new year Perhaps you need to take the Lord's letter to Pergamos into your soul and and deeply consider and pay attention to Pergamos and the perils of compromise And so we pick up here in verse 12. And Christ introduces himself to this church. He says here in verse 12, and to the angel of the church in Pergamos, write, these things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword.

And we don't know a whole lot about the establishing of this church, just like Smyrna. We don't really have any record of its founding, but likely, like all the other six churches, it was founded and established as a plant from Ephesus as people went out from there. And there's a very, very similar flow. What you notice is in the introduction, Christ introduces himself with something that he pulls from chapter one. And it's almost like it's holding up a beautiful jewel, and this jewel has many, many facets.

It's one jewel, but it has different facets or faces and to each church he gears the message very very specifically. What he says to Ephesus is meant to awaken Ephesus. What he says to Smyrna is meant to comfort Smyrna. Well here he borrows from chapter 1 and he says in this in chapter 1, this is what what John says in his description, he had in his right hand in verse 16 seven stars out of his mouth when a sharp two-edged sword in his countenance was like the sun Shining in its strength You see what's what's happening here versus what the message was in the description to Ephesus or to Smyrna It's it's taking a different tone And this should be a clue or an indication as to what's about to come. This is more threatening than it is welcoming.

You know, you get a picture of the Lord saying, I'm standing with a sword. That's meant to alarm you a little bit and think about what is going to come next what is going to be the tone of the message because what he's doing is he's presenting himself really as a man of war think of it like a husband who's jealous for his bride and he's coming and the next and what follows is going to be really in the spirit and in the tone of what's happening here because what is a sword right everyone knows what a sword is all the little boys I'm sure know what it is it's a weapon and and clearly what we find in scripture is that the sword is really made to be equal with the Word of God. We read that in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 where I think it's probably most clear. In Hebrews 4 verse 12 it says, For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and of the intents of the heart.

And so this is what a sword does. It gets below the surface and what it does is it reveals men's thoughts, it reveals men's purposes, it uncovers. By the way, why is the word of God so often assaulted it does what nothing else in the world does it introduces man to himself it introduces God to man and it's something that oftentimes men cannot take and and it attacks their their thoughts of security And the thing that they most covet oftentimes, which is their sin. And the challenge with the sword is this, is that there's no neutrality. A sword, especially a double edged, sharp sword, It will leave people on one side or on the other side.

And here is the absolute guarantee. Not what I hope or what I think might happen, but today every single one of us sitting here is going to respond somehow to the Word of God, either by receiving it or by rejecting it. And so spiritually speaking, the beautiful thing also about a sword is that it slays sin in the believer, but it also slays sinners who will not repent of their sins and and so the beautiful thing about this the helpful thing about this is that the believer should not fear the sword necessarily but It's good news in that if you are a believer, if you're a true believer and follower, a disciple of Christ, don't despise when the Lord comes with a sword. It's for your good. It's to heal you.

It's to call you back from an errant way, from a path that you're on that is going to lead you into all sorts of harm. And so there might be pain, maybe some embarrassment as sin is uncovered, but like with our children, right, when you discipline your child, there's a healing pain. It's meant to bring about something that will help. And so our brother Mike Davenport, he shared a scripture on Monday morning when we were studying this where in Proverbs it talks about the idea of faithful are the wounds of a friend. And so that's really the spirit as well that you want to have in your mind as you consider what we're looking at today.

And the Lord comes in verse 13, he comes with a commendation. It's a really glowing commendation. He says, I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Strange comment it seems like. And you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

And this is really important he says I know your works but but I also know where you dwell. And I think this is something we can all take in our hearts in the sense of, he's not saying I know your address. I know where you actually physically live. But I think what he's saying here is I know absolutely everything about the motions of your heart I know what's going on inside of your soul the the circumstances under which you live The struggles perhaps that no one else knows I know is What he's saying the discouragements and I find myself when I read this great encouragement just in those words I know where you live. I know what's going on inside of you because oftentimes what's the temptation the temptation is to see yourself, especially when you're going through a hard time as somehow forsaken or forgotten by God somehow perhaps out of his mind he's not really paying attention but he knows and he wants this church to know that he knows and he says I know also where Satan's throne is.

And this is mentioned really of where Satan has his seat of power. There are many, many, many cities scattered all across the world at this time. But when the Lord looks at the town and the city of Pergamos he says this is where Satan has his seat of power this is his headquarters where he's he set up shop and it's a good question to ask you know What would it be like to live where Satan is most at home? Could you imagine? Could you imagine you're driving up to Wake Forest, and as you're getting up to Wake Forest, you see that sign, Welcome to Wake Forest, home of the devil, written underneath it.

I mean, this is a terrible situation that these people are in. It's a very, very perilous neighborhood to be a Christian. Probably the worst than all seven of the churches was here, right here. And I think it's helpful to acknowledge that, that there are some places in the world, some cities, some places in a city that are going to be much more difficult to live as a Christian than perhaps others. And it could be maybe the where you work on a daily basis and you're constantly confronted with the evil of this world.

It's brought up to your face over and over again. It could be even in your home, depending on where you live and under the conditions that you live. But he knows and I think that's where we can get our comfort. He can not only save you out of that, but he can keep you even in the midst of that. Notice what he doesn't say.

He doesn't say it's time to gather your stuff and move out of Pergamos. It's not a, this is not a call To leave the world physically, but it's a call to live in the world with the abiding presence of Christ in us to help us to overcome all of the ploys and the attacks of the devil And So just a little bit of a background on the town or the city of Pergamos. Pergamos was about 65 miles north on the mail route. So we talked about how when John wrote this letter, it would have been transported from the island of Patmos, about 50 miles off the coast of Ephesus, to Ephesus. And then the courier would have taken it up along the mail route.

So we stop along at Smyrna. And then you keep going 65 miles north, and you'll come upon this city of Pergamos. And it was actually the capital city of Asia Minor, with a population of about 120, 000 people. It was a thriving city. It wasn't like Ephesus or Smyrna that were necessarily commercial cities.

That's what they were most known for. But this city, Pergamos, it had a library, a massive library that had about 200, 000 volumes of books. This probably rivaled the next closest, which would have been Alexandria and Egypt. And what they also did, this particular people in this town, very, very inventive people, They ended up actually developing and inventing parchment, what we call today parchment, which is what they would write on. It's calfskin.

And that replaced what was used for thousands of years, which was papyrus, what people would written on. It was much more durable. It could endure and last much longer, a better material. And this is the thing that would be interesting, is you're coming up to the town or the city of Pergamus. You would see it in the distance, because it kind of sat on the top of a cone-shaped hill.

And at the very top of the hill or the mountain, what you would see is smoke plumes coming off the top of the mountain. And you would say, well, perhaps that's a volcano or something like that, but it wasn't a volcano. At the very top of this mountain you had a temple dedicated to Zeus who's referred to as the King of the Gods, the Greek Gods. And day and night what they would be doing is offering animal or human sacrifices to placate this king of the gods and so that would account for the smoke just barreling upwards off the top of this mountain it was a massive massive altar probably three times wider than the width of this church, 120 feet. And what they were actually known for was not only that they had the Temple of Zeus, but they were actually well known for a god that they worshiped by the name of Asclepius, which was the god of medicine and healing.

And if you've had any interaction, even with the medical field or anything like that, you're already familiar with the symbol and the sign of Asclepius. It's a rod with a serpent coiled around the rod. Well, that's the symbol of Asclepius. That's his logo. And even the emperor would travel from Rome to come here to be healed.

And you would go into this dark, dark tunnel and then emerge out into this big space. It would be covered. And you'd be given a potion that you would lie down on a bed, you would fall asleep and snakes would slither over you. That was kind of what they were thinking would be healing you. It would be, think about it now, for some of us it would be an absolutely terrifying experience and you'd wake up and then you'd tell your dream to a priest who would then interpret it and so on and somehow tell you how you would get healed from the actual sickness that you came there for in the first place.

And so this was the background of the city, probably the worst city. It was called the city of temples. That's how bad it was and idolatry was here probably more than anywhere else. And so he says this, you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr who was killed among you where Satan dwells. And so even here in the midst of all of this you've got this faithful little band of people and Christ is very specific.

He says you've held fast to my name. They hadn't given up on The person of Christ they hadn't sacrificed the identity of Christ to the pantheon of all the other gods and said he's just one among many. No, they held fast to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and not only that but they held fast to what he calls my faith And what that means is that these weren't just kind of fly-by-night people, but they were confessional. They were serious-minded. They understood and they held tightly to all of the central facts of Christianity.

And it came at a steep, steep cost, didn't it? You see it right here. It mentions here that Antipas was my faithful martyr. We don't know who Antipas was. Maybe he was one of the pastors.

We really don't have any reliable historical information about him. But what's interesting to me here is that Pergamos was already familiar with what the Lord was preparing Smyrna for. He was telling Smyrna, get ready, things are going to get really bad very quickly. But Pergamos had already tasted martyrdom. That word martyr simply means witness.

This man stood boldly as a witness for his Lord and when he was told to bow down, maybe to offer incense to the Emperor God or to do some other thing, he said, no, I cannot. My Lord and my Savior is who I worship. And so he ended up paying that price for refusing to bow down. And so someone mentioned on Monday that this church, It had a heritage of faithfulness under persecution. But when we go down a little further now, what we're going to find is a church in great crisis, in need of disruption.

They'd been faithful under the assault of persecution and of violence, but now they were yielding to friendship with the world, these unholy alliances. You could call it appeasement. This is what was happening here. And this is so critical for us to understand, because here's what I want us to get today is historically over the centuries hands down the most effective weapon Used against the church has been compromised it's not been persecution And what happens in churches is that churches don't so much fall over a cliff. They don't just, and you as a person, as a Christian, you don't just fall into sin.

But what happens is that we slide into sin gradually. We shift into sin over a period of time, sometimes almost imperceptibly, to where you don't quite recognize even what's happening. And this is exactly what was happening by degrees and by little compromises. You see this church unraveling right before the Lord's eyes. And so one of the lessons that we want to come away with today is that the adversary has more than one tool in his toolbox.

Where he can use persecution on one side. He can switch A bloody strategy to destroy someone like Antipas, he can use a bloodless strategy to undermine the church and take away its light and take away its salt. You could say that where he slays some with persecution, others he slays with compromise. And so this is, if you want to understand where we as hope Baptist or where the American Church is most vulnerable It's going to be right here in these next few verses in verses 14 and 15 we see a move and a shift away from Christ's commendation to Christ's condemnation. He says this, but I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality Thus you have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate And I want to start off with these few, just three words you have there.

You have there. And this is a picture of after much warfare, after much difficulty, after enduring persecution and trial, This church had given way to toleration. You could say that, you know, co-exist bumper stickers started showing up in the in the church parking lot. They had reached terms of peace with the world. You know, let's just, man, it's been tough being a Christian.

Let's just relax a little bit. We can just, you know, be Christians and not give up too much, maybe increments, and still be pleasing to our Lord. And this is where every single church is vulnerable to this kind of infiltration. But like a surgeon, the Lord is very, very careful. He's coming here and he's saying, he's very careful to distinguish not every single person in this church is engaged in a downward trajectory and spiral toward the world.

He's very specific, but by toleration the entire church becomes guilty and will be called to repent as we'll see in a few minutes. And I want to ask us some questions as we go through these verses. And I hope they'll be helpful to your soul as we address these next couple of things. I want to ask you, you know, what an honest inventory of your life reveal an incline or a decline in the pursuit of spirit of holiness? Do I allow things in my home or in my life that I would not have allowed three or maybe four years ago?

Maybe having gone through trials, severe testing, either personally or as we have, even as a local church, have we simply become more tolerant of the things that God is against? And worst of all, worst of all, and probably the most common when people are sliding back, are you chalking up your compromises with the world and sin as actual growth in Christ? You're becoming more broad-minded, more sophisticated, less narrow. Is that Is that your danger? Well consider as we look at these verses.

He mentions something very strange. He goes all the way back 1500 years earlier in the Old Testament and he references, this is the Lord Jesus, the doctrine of Balaam. And if you would, I'd ask that you would turn with me back into Numbers. We find the story of Balaam in Numbers chapter 22 to 24. And obviously we don't have time to go through the entire account.

I'll give a quick synopsis, but if you can get to Numbers 25, we'll pick up there. And what was happening is this, is that Israel now is on the verge of going into the promised land. They were right there and Israel's reputation had preceded it. And so the Bible says this, that as a result Moab, the nation of Moab, was sick with dread. And so their king by the name of Balak decides, I'm going to hire a diviner by the name of Balaam.

He's a money man, someone who can be bought and sold. He has some sort of spiritual insight. And he says, I'm going to ask him to curse Israel. Of course all the children probably know this account very very well. It's one of the most memorable in the Old Testament.

He tries and he fails to rebuke, He tries and he fails to actually curse Israel. So God ends up rebuking him. But then he tries again. He saddles up his donkey and he starts to make his way to Moab. And of course we find these words here.

You can see that God isn't all that pleased. Now the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field. And we know what happens after that but notice this who's standing in the way the angel of the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ has come to do what he always does and what is that to defend his people and how do we find him with a sword drawn Much like the description that we're reading here. And of course, Balaam fails.

Long story short, the last verse of chapter 24, verse 25, it says, so Balaam rose and departed and returned to his place. Balaam also went away but if you continue in the book of numbers and you go further past this to Numbers chapter 31 we won't do that yet but if you want to mark it and look at it later verse 15 and 16 Moses actually shares the strategy that Balaam used to entice the people of Israel. It tells the council that Balaam gave to Balak and how these people could be overcome. And we're going to read it right now in chapter 25, verses 1 to 13. I want us to follow this.

This is so important. It says this in verse 1, chapter 25. Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined and that word joined it means fastened or yoked or welded to Baal of Peor and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel.

Then the Lord said to Moses, take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel. So Moses said to the judges of Israel, every one of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor. And indeed, one of the children of Israel came, now look at this, look at this, and one, Indeed, one of the children of Israel came into the camp and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And so it wasn't enough that these people had gone out of the camp and engaged themselves with this abominable idolatry and sexual immorality. But now you've got this one guy saying, hey, you know what?

I'm going to go and I'm going to parade my evil inside the camp of the Lord Can you imagine the gall? Can you imagine the the spirit? There's no shame rather pride He's priding himself on what he's doing. We'll continue reading. Now Phineas, when Phineas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and he took a javelin in his hand.

And he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped and the children of Israel and those who died in the plague were 24, 000. The stumbling block set up right on the actual brink of Israel going into the promised land. 24, 000 men and women are slain, never getting in. Notice, notice, it wasn't crying that stopped the plague, was it?

These people weeping. It wasn't good intentions, no. The evil had to be confronted directly. And so this is what we need to see. The same violence that Finney has undertook when he took that javelin and runs into the tent and kills this man and the Moabite woman.

It is the same type of violence that we should approach, not one another with, but our own sin with. You know, you could ask, well, wasn't he overreacting? Come on. Didn't he kind of go over the top? Well, let's see what the Lord says.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Phineas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the children of Israel. Why? Because he was zealous with what? My zeal among them. So that I did not consume the children of Israel in my zeal.

Therefore say, Behold, I will give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. So what is the punchline? What do we what do we glean from this? Why is the Lord Jesus going all the way back 1500 years to bring up this story about Balaam. Well, the doctrine of Balaam was this, that somehow he had persuaded Israel, seeing that they were the covenant people of God, secure in their covenant with God, that they might safely enjoy and indulge or yoke with their neighbors in sin and yet still share all the benefits of the covenant Is that a safe worldview to have?

Well what's happening now is that the Balaamites are long gone, but the devil's not gone. And he's a great recycler of false teachings and evils. And so, it's no longer the Balaamites, but he says, you've got these people called the Nicolaitans in your church. He's using the exact same strategy that so effectively decimated the nation of Israel 1500 years ago, and brings it now into the actual church of Jesus Christ and he says thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate does this does this by the way as we're going through this is this adjust any of your picture and view of who you factor the Lord Jesus to be? Like does he hate?

Well he hates something right here very specifically. He's standing with a sword. It's meant to give us an accurate true picture of who Christ really is in relationship with sin in the world. And he says thus, in this way, that's what it means. It's almost like he's saying, like those who corrupted Israel on the brink of the promised land, you have some corruptors seducing you to go back to the very culture that I delivered you from and these people were called the Nicolaitans we don't know a whole lot about them though their doctrine has endured through the centuries as we'll see in a second but as a group They've long gone off the scene and there's all sorts of speculation as to who they are, you know Iranias who was a early church father in his book against heresies said this that the Nicolaitans were the followers of that Nicholas Who was one of the seven first ordained to the diaconate by the Apostles.

They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence. So that might be accurate. He's writing fairly close on the heels of this letter. And what was interesting is that they would have considered themselves to be Christians But in reality what they were was a group of heretics that had this very libertine attitude towards sexual morality and involvement in idolatrous things and This was the doctrine if you remember that was utterly repulsed by the church in Ephesus. We read in chapter 2 verse 6, but this you have to the church in Ephesus, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Well, what was rejected and repulsed by Ephesus had sadly found a home in Pergamos. And so what is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans? Well, it's really this idea of anti-nomianism. It's this idea of against law. And it's probably its core statement of faith is if a man's creed be right, his conduct does not so much matter.

You can kind of live as you like as long as you've got the right creed and set of things you check off. And so you could say these people that from the very perch of Christian liberty they waged their war inside the church. This is not persecution, but undermining influences of sin, creeping in and festering like leaven throughout the whole lump. The idea was let us continue sinning that grace may abound this spirit of licentiousness. And you could say well oh terrible thank God they died out.

Well I want to read to you something from Charles Spurgeon and this was in the 1850s. He says, in my first pastorate, I had often to battle with the antinomians, that is, people who held that because they believed themselves to be elect. They might live as they liked. From my very soul I detest everything that is in the least savoring of the antinomianism which leads people to pray about being securing Christ while they are living in sin. If a man is not desiring a holy life in the sight of God with the help of the Holy Spirit, he is still in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.

The idea of saving faith apart from good works is ridiculous." End quote. Well how might this relate to us? You know, where are the threats to us as we're living here? Where are the dangers of compromise and undermining of our faith? Well, you look in this church here and he talks about eating things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality.

And what's interesting and what's fascinating is, and maybe even surprising, is that the most common warning in Scripture is not against lying. It's not against gossip. It's not against adultery or murder. It's against idolatry in the entire spectrum of Scripture. It's a dominant sin of the Old Testament and as the church was being born and birthed and making its way into pagan lands, you might remember the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15 when they said, this is what we can agree to as the gospel goes forth and we want the Gentiles to understand these things which was specific to eating things sacrificed to idols and being involved in fornication or sexual immorality and the beautiful thing about this new covenant what might not have been available to those in the Old Testament, is that this is the fact that we have the Spirit of the living God living within us.

And what's happening is that the Spirit of God, it empowers us to obey and Cleanse away our idols. It's one of the most beautiful things to consider when we have Christ living with us within us It doesn't mean that we're not tempted by the gods all around us. Of course we are that's that's a reality but But what's interesting is that you might be in little danger of sneaking off at night to the temple of Zeus, or wandering through the cavern into the temple of Asclepius. That's probably not your great risk. But There is a reason why the Apostle John in the very last verse of his epistle, chapter, the first epistle, says, little children, keep yourselves from idols.

There's a reason he says that. And here's the truth about idols. Idols don't leave on their own. They don't leave on their own. They have to be torn down, but before they can be torn down, they have to be identified, and they have to then be attacked.

The other thing is this, Mark it down. Impure worship always, always, always leads to impure practice. You'll be amazed. You go through the entire Bible and you will always see the connection of idolatry and sexual immorality. It's almost inseparable, whether it's David idolizing himself and doing the wrong thing and ending up obviously committing adultery.

That's a form of idolatry, just as much as Baal worship and so on. And this is the thing, historically, you'll find as well, all the way down through the ages. And it's impossible to catalog all of the potential idols that we face, but I want to look at two, really kind of in the sphere of what this church is going and looking at right now. And it's really the idol of sexual immorality. And the word for immorality or sexual immorality is the Greek word is pornea.

It's used about 26 times in the New Testament. And there's a broad spectrum of it applies to the physical acts that people can undertake outside the bonds of marriage, either before you're married or even while you're married. But I also want to look at and speak to us about pornography. And this is the reason I want to do this is because this is perhaps the greatest threat to the church today. You can argue it.

I think it's probably one of, if not the greatest threat to the church. It's really what we would call the new Achilles heel. You ever heard of an Achilles heel? You could be as fit as a fiddle. You could be physically strong.

You can bench press 500 pounds, but if you've got a torn Achilles tendon, you're not going anywhere. And so when you find yourself wandering back at night to this temple, You are worshipping. You're saying this is beautiful. You're saying this is satisfying. And what it does, what it does, is it creates a darkness in your life, in your soul.

It's crippling and I want you to fear. I want you to fear. Don't say I'm struggling. I'm going through a hard, you know, make light of it. You need to fear this because it's not isolated, it's not compartmentalized or sectioned off.

What it does is it's soul stripping it eats you alive as you stand on your feet And this is the if not the greatest I would argue The greatest thing that's affecting the church today, and it's witness in the world guess what it's happening underneath the hood and it's so damaging. The other one I want to talk about is the idol, the temple of entertainment in Hollywood specifically. This is the vehicle that some of you dads and myself included are in danger of smuggling in the most godless worldviews right into our homes in the form of entertainment murder mayhem rebellion Immorality the Lord's name taken in vain Adultery you got mythological superheroes grown men watching superheroes on a screen. You say, well, it doesn't affect me. That's an utter lie.

How do I know that? Because the Bible says that righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked for that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. The eye gate and hearing their lawless deeds, this multi-sensory experience so almost devastated this man to the point where you see the results. Actually, we saw the results today. Moab is the offspring of Lot.

You say, well, you know, I don't do what I see on screen, you know, I just watch it. Well, may God save us from being entertained by the things that he hates. May he mark that down in our hearts, the things that Christ died for. You could say, well, you know what? I filter out the few bad words from the worst that Hollywood has to offer using something called vid angel so you take a couple words out a couple acts out but the entire worldview is Coming over you like a tidal wave and you think this is awesome and you're clean that's not the case the worldview that it's like the the axe and the swear words all there is like an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence but you've read the entire sentence just took out the exclamation mark whoo that was that was good You can't do that and continue in the way that you are.

So I want to ask this, does it matter what you feed on for entertainment? Listen to Joel Beeke. We are told in some Reformed churches that as Christians we must do what we can to redeem, quotes, television and movies, theater, dance, sports, and the most and most everything else in the world so that the world can be reclaimed for Christ, His covenant and His kingdom. There is something seriously wrong with that kind of thinking. Indeed, everything good and true in this world must be reclaimed by believers for Christ, but we must not attempt to reclaim what is sinful for Christ.

We cannot sanctify that which tends to promote sinful thinking and immoral behavior. And so I say this with as much love as I can muster and as a man likewise who can fall and stumble. I'm not coming to you and saying you get up and I'm saying you would you'd have to just know ahead of time to fear because of the fact that I know I'm just a man. I can fall in a second if the Lord doesn't sustain me and I say it with as much kindness and love as I can muster. Please flee from these idols.

Leave these temples. Be done with them and walk with the Lord. He comes now in verse 16. He says with the ultimatum, repent Or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the word the sword of my mouth So far it's been Somewhat difficult hasn't it been sit down and hear all of these things But I want you to rejoice at the greatest word right here, the single word from Jesus Christ, repent. The greatest news, this is the greatest news for Pergamos.

It turns out that it's not hopeless, is it? It's not hopeless at all. There's hope from their present condition of toleration of sin and appeasement with sin. And the whole church, what you notice, is the whole church is called to repent. He says, you or else.

And another brother, I think, on Monday morning said, it's as though Christ is saying purge or Be purged. It's a command and it's a worthy lesson This is what I got from this as I'm looking through this, you know Christians not when you're in the gall of wickedness and you're an ungodly person you don't know Christ and you need to repent. That's not what only repentance is for. But Christians are actually Repenters. Like I'm a repenter when I'm a Christian because I'm constantly finding things in myself or being exposed to things that I need to not just say sorry for like the people that were bowing down outside the Ark of the Covenant but things that I need perhaps to take a javelin against and repent for in an actual active way and what Christ is doing here is he's ordering a stop to the downward slide through the grace of repentance embrace repentance see it as the most beautiful word that you can actually repent and turn.

Otherwise, I will come to you. I will come and fight against them. These are the Nicolaitans. But what's even amazing here is this, is that even they are not barred from God's mercy if they will repent even in Nicolaitan and the call to all of us is to stop indulging in the sins of the culture around you you can say well how serious is this really we've got to live well if you do not repent as a church, your toleration will prove to be your downfall over the course of time. Again, it won't happen over a day or a week or a month, but gradually, just like the threat to Ephesus is that the candlestick could just simply be removed.

By the way, historically speaking, Pergamos did not last, I don't think, more than a century after this letter was given to them. But I look at this and I say, what grace. You know, what grace of God, not only to save us and to justify us, but then to intervene. He doesn't walk away. You know, we were reading this morning in Psalm 27, when my mother and my father forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.

Do you see the Lord just washing his hands and saying, I'm done, you people are just too far gone. No, he's calling them back to himself. Take this to heart and understand it. The greatest thing that ever happened to the church in Pergamos was the Lord coming and arresting them and calling them back. And I want us to just spend a few minutes looking at the tokens of love that are an offer to those who actually repent.

Because I want you to see this. Here is the great remedy right here in this last verse. The great remedy and the motivation against backsliding. It's resetting your hope on the promises of the Living God. And this is what it says here, he who has an ear to hear, I'm sorry, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat and I will give him a white stone and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it and you could say here that that what what the Lord is saying is to him who repents, just as much as you could say to him who overcomes, to him who takes the letter to Pergamos to heart and you say Oh Lord be merciful to me a sinner like the man in the temple with the Pharisee To him who repents this is what you have waiting for you hidden manna and And you look at this hidden manna obviously continuing this whole reference of Israel, you know, throughout the wilderness. And it's a point, a picture, we saw this when we looked at John where Christ says this, this pointing to himself, this is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread, Christ, will live forever." He's pointing to the fact. All that's around you, all that you're being deceived by, that's not true food.

It's not true life. Those temples that you're scurrying off to at night, that's not where you find life. And he's offering them a restoration of true communion with himself, uniting them with what is truly satisfying. He not only says that, but he uses this curious language of a white stone And there's all sorts of speculation around what is this white stone? It doesn't really appear as a theme in Scripture, but one of the there's many reasons many explanations But I think one that resonated most with me is that in antiquity in the civil realm when a judge was giving sentence To the person who was being accused He would either give a white stone if they were declared innocent or a black stone if they were declared Guilty And what that white stone symbolized was complete absolution.

So that when Jim is walking down the street, and people say, there's that guy that got accused, he would be able to show his white stone, I'm totally absolved. There's no longer anything hanging over my head. I've been declared totally innocent. Well, I think this points in one way to what's already been achieved for us, which is our justification. But you know what, for me and probably for you, what is a great motivation for sanctification is looking back to seeing that I have actually been justified by the grace of God that that's what oftentimes will spur me to want to serve God what should I fear when I've been justified and he's recalling them to this.

But there's another thing as well. And that is this idea, notice in every single one of the seven letters, he ends almost with some sort of eschatological reference, meaning to the end of the age. And So what's happening is this, is that you've got this white stone waiting for you and this white stone will almost be like a pass or token into the great supper and feast, the wedding feast of the lamb. Don't forsake it. Well, on that stone you've got this new name no one knows the name now I don't know what it is per se but what it seems to be is this indication of status your name is engraved on that stone no one can take it away It's this idea of adoption of sonship of inheritance.

No matter what comes against you You stand because you've got this white stone waiting for you And it's this idea of a personal fellowship the Lord knows you specifically and So all of these things even if you found yourself wandering away, let the promises offered by Christ call you back. And I just want to end with a couple of thoughts here. You know, really the application is what we just talked about. Repent. Verse 16.

Turn around and go the other way. Take up the javelin if you need to. Don't go home and say, that was an interesting few thoughts we heard today. But may God help us to really take action against our sins. For believers there's a few things we need to always do and that is to keep the perils of compromise.

This lesson, this message to Pergamos always before us. I want us to ask, you know, what would it have been like for the Saints in Pergamos to leave church that day after hearing this letter? And I want to ask us the question, have you found yourself or there's a family or as an individual sliding back by degrees into the world. Christ wants you to know this, that if you are a follower of His and you're flirting with the world today, you're gonna have to contend with Him. He wants you to know that.

But it's all with love. He wants you to be wounded by the sword of his word with a sense of your sin and by doing so that way you can actually be healed. It's amazing. All isn't lost, but this could actually be the best thing that has ever happened to you. To be brought up short and to see that your need for repentance is so great and I want to just also put in our mind one thought is this remember that for you to receive the white stone He had to receive the black stone, didn't he?

And that should be such a motivation to not displease the Lord Jesus Christ. Forsake forsake the things that he hates. I want us to also consider that we ought to forsake any notions, any little inklings of antinomianism in our minds that Christ isn't all that concerned with moral purity. Let's put those things away once and for all and help us to be moved with the zeal of Phineas to take action against those things in our lives that need to be taken action against. The last thing I would say is to those who have not bowed the knee, don't be confused.

That white stone, that hidden manna, it's not for you unless you repent he's going to come to you with the sword of judgment it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but the good news is that the fountain of mercy is not dried up there's room for you no matter what all your sins can be washed away. It doesn't matter what you've done, what temples you've gone to, even recently. There is a fountain for sin and for uncleanness. Run to Him. You can't afford, the last thing I would say is this, You can't afford to not respond to Him.

You can't afford indifference. But heed the words of Christ. And may we all be moved and changed by what He's saying to the churches. He who has an ear to hear, Let Him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Amen.

Oh Father, we come to You, Father, as a church, as a body of believers. Lord, We come to you in weakness and laden down oftentimes with our own sins, Lord. We need your help. We thank you for coming to us, for not leaving us in our state, for not washing your hands of us and being done with us once and for all. But Lord, you have started this good work.

We'll complete it to the very day of Christ and we rest in you. We ask you, Lord, help us open our hearts, open our minds to what you're actually saying. Help us to be changed by it and to walk in true life, to eat of that hidden manna. Once again, Lord, please, we do need you and we thank you for your goodness and patience with us. In Christ's name, amen.