Coronation: The Compromising Church

Transcript

JRNT 505
The Compromising Church
Revelation 2:12-27
03/23/2025
Jesse Randolph

One of the greatest preachers of the past 200 years in terms of his reach and his impact was Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The 19th-century British preacher who preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London and became known as the “Prince of Preachers.” He had a profound impact not only in his native Great Britain but really all over the globe. He was astonishingly prolific. He preached thousands of sermons almost all of which were printed and distributed worldwide, so that at the time of his death, some 56 million copies of his sermons were printed in nearly 40 languages. Even today, there is more material in print by Spurgeon than any other Christian author, living or dead. Spurgeon had all the tools of the preacher in his toolbelt. He had what is reported as being a beautiful speaking voice, with melody, and depth, and resonance that allowed him to be heard by thousands, without really any strain on his part. He was unbelievably eloquent. He could pull from a storehouse of similes, and metaphors, and dramatic illustrations which seemingly had no end, which is why there have been countless volumes which have been published that line the shelves of pastors’ libraries, of the many memorable one-liners of Spurgeon, so called “Spurgeonisms.”

He had a gift for the dramatic, you could even call it the theatrical, in his delivery. In fact, the manager of London’s Drury Lane Theatre once said, “I would give a large amount of money if I could get Spurgeon on the stage.” He had amazing ability to pull together massive amounts of information for his sermons, and then on the fly, cobble together information, all that information, into these wonderful works of exposition. It is said that he prepared his Sunday morning sermons exclusively on Saturday nights. Just a little hint and inside baseball for you, I don’t do that. I’m not that good. He then would prepare his Sunday night sermons all on Sunday afternoon and he would just do it all by the seat of his pants at the very last minute and even then he would just take a little envelope with a few notes scribbled on the back, and that was his outline. And then out came the brilliant exposition as he waxed poetic like William Shakespeare. He was an unbelievable man.

Many point out that he was certifiably brilliant. Many suspect He had a photographic memory, while he was a preacher of preachers, the “prince of preachers.” Not only did Spurgeon preach though, he invested a great amount of his time in various other ventures and people. He read a ton. He studied a ton. He trained young men for ministry in the Pastors’ College he started. He did all of this while tending to his family, his wife, Susannah, their twin boys, Thomas and Charles, both of whom would go on to be ministers of the gospel. And then to top it all off, Spurgeon was fabulously wealthy, having sold various copies of His sermons and various books he wrote. He amassed income of what would be the equivalent in American dollars would be around $25,000,000 US dollars today. All of which by the way, he gave away. He died actually with hardly any money in the bank. He gave it away to various causes. Spurgeon, by every metric, was a brilliant man. And Spurgeon by really any standard, was a very successful man.

But despite his wild success, it’s not as though Spurgeon didn’t face trials at various points in his life and his ministry. He most certainly did. It is well-chronicled, for instance, that Spurgeon dealt with a crippling sense of doubt and worry and despair, what clinicians today would undoubtedly call depression. And then, after three decades of a highly successful preaching ministry, Spurgeon, near the end of his life, faced one of the greatest trials he would ever face, in this set of circumstances known as the Downgrade Controversy.

See, Spurgeon was a Baptist. And during Spurgeon’s time, namely in the late 1870s and 1880s, the largest denomination of Baptists in the United Kingdom were called the Baptist Union. And, much to Spurgeon’s chagrin, the Baptist Union had become infiltrated with a dangerous concoction of Darwinian evolutionary theory, anti-supernaturalism, liberal critical theories which denied the inerrancy of Scripture, and a whole host of other problematic views which eroded the very foundations of the Christian faith. Pastors of those churches within that Baptist Union were caving in. They were feeling the compromise, the pressure to compromise on these matters and sadly, many of those British pastors did compromise. And in this regular periodical that Spurgeon would put out on top of all his other responsibilities, he had a periodical called the “The Sword and the Trowel.” Spurgeon, in a series of articles that he wrote to address the growing compromise that was happening, he called those other pastors out. He called those other churches out. I’m actually going to read to you a few quotable lines from Spurgeon’s letters to those pastors, to those churches who were on the downgrade. This will give you a flavor of the controversy at the time.

He writes, “A chasm is opening between the men who believe their Bibles and the men who are prepared for an advance upon Scripture. Inspiration and speculation cannot long abide in peace. Compromise there can be none. We cannot hold the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement and yet deny it; we cannot hold the doctrine of the fall and yet talk of the evolution of spiritual life from human nature. One way or the other we must go. Decision is the virtue of the hour.”

Then he wrote, separate letter, “It now becomes a serious question how far those who abide by the faith once delivered to the saints should fraternize with those who have turned aside to another gospel. Christian love has its claims, and divisions are to be shunned as grievous evils; but how far are we justified in being in confederacy with those who are departing from the truth? It is a difficult question to answer so as to keep the balance of the duties. For the present it behooves believers to be cautious, lest they lend their support and countenance to the betrayers of the Lord. Numbers of easy-minded people wink at error so long as it is committed by a clever man and a good-natured brother, who has so many fine points about him. Let each believer judge for himself; but, for our part, we have put on a few fresh bolts to the door.”

Here's another one, “Let those who will keep the narrow way keep it, and suffer for their choice; but to hope to follow the broad road at the same time is an absurdity. With steadfast faith let us take our places; not in anger, not in the spirit of suspicion or division, but in watchfulness and resolve. Let us not pretend to a fellowship which we do not feel, nor hide our convictions which are burning in our hearts. The times are perilous, and the responsibility of every individual believer is a burden which we must bear, or prove a traitor.”

One last one. And It’s short. He says, “We are going downhill at breakneck speed.” See Spurgeon was more than a little worried about the compromise that was forming and widening within the Baptist Union of His day, on these matters of sound biblical doctrine. And so here he was bemoaning that downward decline, bemoaning this downgrade that was happening within his brethren in the faith. And he was willing to speak up about it. And there was a cost to his speaking up. Because Spurgeon received in response to all those letters I just read, a formal written censure from the Baptist Union. Basically a verbal slap on the wrist saying you should not have sent those letters.

Well, two weeks later not at all dissuaded by receiving that written censure from the Baptist Union, Spurgeon preached a sermon on February 5, 1888. It was titled “Holding Fast the Faith.” I won’t read the entirety of his sermon. It’s my job here to preach my sermon tonight. But I’ll give you a little flavor of it. He says, “We must never hide our colors. There are times when we must dash to the front when we see that our Captain’s honor demands it. Let us never be either ashamed or afraid. Our Lord Jesus deserves that we should yield ourselves as willing sacrifices in defense of his faith. Ease, reputation, life itself, must go for the name and faith of Jesus. If in the heat of the battle our good name or our life must be risked to win the victory, then let us say, ‘In this battle some of us must fall, why should not I? I will take part and lot with my Master, and bear reproach for his sake.’ Only brave soldiers are worthy of our great Lord. Those who sneak into the rear, that they may be comfortable, are not worthy of the kingdom… Brethren, we must be willing to bear ridicule for Christ’s sake, even that peculiarly envenomed ridicule which ‘the cultured’ are so apt to pour upon us. We must be willing to be thought great fools for Jesus’ sake. For my part, I am willing to be ten thousand fools in one for my dear Lord and Master, and count it to be the highest honor that can be put upon me to be stripped of every honor, and loaded with every censure for the sake of the grand old truth which is written on my very heart.”

You can hear it in the words that he preached that morning, that Charles Spurgeon was a man who felt compelled to stand against compromise on the matter of truth in the church. And in doing so, on February 5, 1888, the text that Spurgeon chose to preach is the text that we’ll be in this evening, Revelation 2:12-17. Jesus’ letter to the church at Pergamum. See, Spurgeon recognized that Jesus’ letter to this church was all about compromise in the church. And so as he called out the compromise in his day, Spurgeon viewed this third of Jesus’ seven letters as the text he felt compelled to preach in his moment.

Well, he made a good call. Because as we’re going to see as we work through this text this evening, in sending his letter to this church at Pergamum, Jesus was addressing a church which had compromised. A church that was now compromised and a church that, like the Baptist Union of Spurgeon’s day, now found itself being off mission.

If you are not there already, turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation 2. We will look at verses 12-17, where we read these words from Jesus to the compromised church at Pergamum. It says, “and to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: This is what the One who has the sharp two-edged sword says: ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, that you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. But if not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war 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, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.”

So we are right in the middle of these seven letters that the ascended, glorified Lord of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, wrote to seven churches in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, in the late first century A.D. And you’ll recall that in these letters, Jesus is giving this candid assessment of the spiritual health of these churches. And in doing so He’s giving this mixture of words of commendation and words of critique or words of criticism. But these letters that He wrote to these churches some 2,000 years ago, the case I’ve been making so far is that they were not written only to these churches. That was, of course, the primary audience. But these aren’t artifacts that are frozen in time. Rather they are written and intended to go out to churches in the modern era. Churches like ours, Indian Hills Community Church in March of 2025. And these letters require us then to give serious consideration to this question. If Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Church, were to pen a letter directly to us, address it to 1000 S. 84th St, Lincoln, Nebraska and post mark it March 23, 2025, what would we receive? Would we receive words of commendation or would we receive words of criticism? Or would we receive a little bit of both?

Well, so far we’ve looked at two of Christ’s seven letters. First, we saw in the letter to the church at Ephesus, a church that was sweating and toiling and working hard. A church that was theologically astute and spiritually discerning. But a church which had lost its first love. And then a couple of Sundays ago, we looked at Christ’s letter to the church at Smyrna, which was a dear church, a suffering church. A church that refused to back down from its witness for Jesus Christ, and as a result, was a church that was being persecuted up to the point of death. Tonight, we’re going to look at this third letter, this letter to the church at Pergamum. A church that like the Baptist churches of Spurgeon’s day, and sadly like many churches in our day, was trying to be tolerant. It was trying to fit in with the times. It was trying to stay relevant. But in doing so, it had compromised. And as we’re going to see, the Lord had some sharp words for this church and its compromised ways.

Now before we get into these words more directly, I want to dig into some more of the background and set the scene of what’s happening here in Pergamum at this time. Let’s trace out that mental map of where each of these towns sat on that ancient postal route. Relative to Smyrna, the last town that we looked at, Pergamum sat about 55 miles northeast of that city of Smryna. And this city Pergamum, it means “citadel.” That’s the name of the word and that’s appropriate because this city did stand on a hill a thousand feet in elevation which then the city could be seen from miles away. It was a large city by ancient standards. About 150,000 people lived here. It was an established city. It was a well-known city. The ancient historian, Pliny the Younger, once said that Pergamum was “the most famous place of Asia.” It was an intellectually important city. It had a large decorated library, some 200,000 volumes. That’s a lot of books pre-Gutenberg printing press. It had a medical school which was known for healing or tending to wounded gladiators.

But what Pergamum was most known for was not its library, not its medical school. Instead what it was most known for were its religious practices. See, Pergamum was known as this hotbed of pagan worship. The citizens of Pergamum couldn’t fall down fast enough to worship all of the different fake, false gods who were being worshipped in this city at this time. I’m going to mention just three of those sources of false worship, just to give you a flavor of what was happening here.

One was the worship of Zeus. There was a massive altar in Pergamum dedicated to the worship of Zeus, who sat at the top of the pantheon of ancient Greek gods. By this point in history, he was known by his Roman name Jupiter, but he was worshipped yet in this city.

Then there was the worship of Asclepius. Pergamum was the home to a temple dedicated to the worship of this ancient Greek god named Asclepius who was known as the Greek god of medicine and healing. Asclepius was known to carry a rod or a staff that was wrapped around by a serpent. In fact, you have probably seen this image before on a hospital or on the side of an ambulance. That logo is still existent in the modern day medical community, the figure of Asclepius. Well, it was from this temple dedicated to the worship of Asclepius that Pergamum’s medical school was born. But this medical school was not practicing what we think of is medicine by modern day standards. It was sort of a mix of medicine and superstitious pagan rituals.

Then there was, third, the worship of the emperor. We know that Pergamum was a city that was strongly devoted to emperor worship. In fact, it was the hub of emperor worship in ancient Asia Minor. Pergamum was the first city in Asia Minor to build a shrine to worship a living ruler, which it did all the way back B.C. 29 when it built a shrine in honor of the Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar. The same Augustus Caesar we saw in Luke 2 in the morning service.

So while Pergamum was this large city, this thriving city, while it was this educated city and this safe city and this desirable city, it was a dark city and it was a lost city. Its citizens were engaged in this wide range of false worship of all these fake gods. And it was into this context that God eventually flooded this area with the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A church was established there in the mid-first century, and it grew. And it did so, as we’re about to see, notwithstanding some difficult circumstances including opposition, and persecution, and death.

So with that, let’s get into the meat of the text here and see what the Lord says to the church here at Pergamum as we turn back to the text. We open with verse 12 where it says, “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write.” Remember these are the words of Christ as now captured by the apostle John. But is says, “and to the angel of the church in Pergamum write.” We can stop there. I’ve explained in the previous sermons that that word “angel” is a transliteration of the Greek word “angelo.” And that word, “angelo,” does not mean a winged, chubby-cheeked, cupid-like creature. Nor does it mean one of the seraphim of Isaiah chapter 6. The word simply means messenger. And the context of these seven letters to these seven churches, the messengers that Jesus was writing to and addressing, would have been the leaders of these churches. Which I take to be the pastors of these churches. So I take that first line to be “and to the pastor of the church in Pergamum write.”

And then note who it is who’s writing to the pastor of this church. It’s the One with the sharp two-edged sword. “This is what the One who has the sharp two-edged sword says.” That’s a reference back to Revelation 1:16. We covered that a few weeks ago, and that’s that scene where the Apostle John turns around to hear the voice that’s behind him. And remember what he saw? He saw and beheld the risen Christ in all of His glory. He saw the glorified Savior of the World, with his long robe and His golden sash and His hair like white wool, like snow. And he saw Jesus’ eyes like flames of fire and that His feet were like burnished bronze, and His voice was like the sound of the roaring of many waters. And His face was “like the sun shining in its power.” And then last we saw, proceeding from His mouth was “a sharp two-edged sword.” Revelation 1:16.

And that sword that’s described as protruding from the mouth of Christ in Revelation 1:16, is the same sword He’s now wielding as He addresses the church here at Pergamum. And that sword was no small dagger. We’re not talking about a pocket knife here. The word for sword that’s used here refers to a large, broad sword. Think of the massive swords that many centuries later medieval knights would use. That’s the idea here. The type of sword that Jesus is described here as wielding is one that is being wielded by a person who has authority, but by one who could execute justice. There’s meaning to what Christ is saying there as He addresses this church in this city. The One who is righteous and just in all His ways is describing with that language that He is authoritatively in command.

And that would have meant something to the people in Pergamum. These Christians who were living in this city which had fallen under Roman control. There were these local authorities who wielded the power of the sword and had the power to execute at will and enforce capital punishment on demand. They were the ones who were seemingly in control. So to hear those words now from the sovereign Christ, in verse 12 here, that the one who had this justice-dispensing sword protruding from his mouth, that would have reminded the saints at Pergamum, that while in one sense, the Roman government had power and they had the sword, true power rests over life and death with Jesus Christ the Savior.

Not only that, His words, these words in verse 12 would have reminded the church at Pergamum and they remind all of us today, that one day the uneven scales of justice in this world will be leveled. One day every wrong that occurs in this world will be righted. One day those who oppress wickedly God’s people will receive their payday. When Jesus, who is Lord of all, unleashes His righteous wrath on this rebellious planet, when He makes war on this world with the sword of his mouth. It’s a word all need to hear in the upside-down world in which we live today. Is it not? A world in which sometimes we feel like David, in Psalm 13. And we say “How long, O Lord? Will you forget [us[ forever?” And it was just what the church at Pergamum needed to hear as well. They needed to hear that the Roman authorities were not the ultimate authority. They needed to hear that their Roman overlords were ultimately under the Lord of glory. They needed to be reminded of Who was in control. That would have provided them encouragement that they needed, to persevere and to push forward in their service to Him.

Well, that takes us next to what He says in verse 13 to this church. He says, “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is, and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.” Let’s start with those first few words there. He says, “I know where you dwell.” The Lord here was saying, “Just like I know the saints at Ephesus and how they’re tempted to loveless orthodoxy. And just like I know the saints at Smyrna and how they are suffering. I know you, Pergamum.” Specifically, He says to this church, “I know where you dwell.” Meaning “I know your address, I know your context, I know your circumstances.”

By the way, look at how this verse is bookended. It starts with “I know where you dwell.” And at the very end it says, “where Satan dwells.” What He is saying here by the way this is artistically crafted is where they dwell is where Satan dwells. So when Jesus says here, “I know where you dwell,” He is saying, “I am acknowledging here that you live behind enemy lines. You and the Adversary share the same zip code.”

And that’s significant even in our day. Right? Christians, in all circumstances and all generations are called, James 4:7, to resist the devil. But resistance doesn’t always look the same in every single circumstance or every single generation or every single state or continent. Right? Resistance of the devil might look different in Manhattan, Kansas than it does Manhattan, New York. Resistance of the devil might look different in Lincoln, Nebraska than it does in Los Angeles, California. Resistance of the devil might look different in 1955 than it does in 2025. That’s the idea here. That Satan has influence all over this world, he is “the god of this world,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. But his grip is especially tight on certain times and certain places and even over certain people. What’s happening at Pergamum here, what’s being described here about Pergamum is that he had an especially strong grip and influence over this city and its culture.

But Pergamum here is not only described as being the place where Satan dwells. His description of this city gets even more specific. The people in Pergamum lived the text says, “where Satan’s throne is.” See, Pergamum had this unfortunate distinction at this time in history of being the seat of Satanic power in Asia Minor. They lived in the capital city of wickedness in this part of the world. They lived “where Satan’s throne is.”

And what does that mean? What’s the meaning of that term, “where Satan’s throne is”? What throne did Satan have in Pergamum? Well, the strongest interpretive option I’ve found is that Pergamum was called “Satan’s throne” because of what we have already looked at. Its strong ties to false worship. As I’ve already mentioned, Pergamum was this first city in this whole region of Asia Minor to build a shrine that was dedicated to the worship of a living emperor, Augustus Caesar in 29 B.C. And by this time, Pergamum was not only this place where emperor worship happened, it was the capital of emperor worship. And the city was proud of this distinction. They wore this distinction as a badge of honor. And in this type of atmosphere, the Christians in this city would have been under tremendous pressure to betray Christ and worship a mere man, even if he was powerful and even if he was almighty, the emperor. But they knew they couldn’t do that. And they wouldn’t do that. This church and this city was steadfastly loyal to Christ even if it meant ostracism at best and martyrdom at worst.

And as we’re about to see the Lord is going to commend them for remaining true to their witness for Him. Look at the next part of verse 13 where He says, “and you hold fast My name.” You hold on to my name. You cling tightly to my name. Our Lord Jesus is described with so many descriptive words and so many different names in the Scriptures. And each of those names casts different shades or rays of light on different aspects of His person and His character. Messiah. Immanuel. Son of Man. Son of God. Savior. Lord. The Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. The Word of God. The Wisdom of God. The Power of God. The Lamb of God. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The Shepherd. The Branch. The Root. The Vine. The Light of the World. The Morning Star. The Rock. The Cornerstone. The Mediator. The Priest. The Advocate. The First Born. The Last Adam. The Head. The Prince. The King. The Judge. The Holy One of God. The Way. The Truth. The Life.

How often do you find yourself holding fast to one of those names of Christ in your times of despair or distress? When you’re feeling or experiencing feelings of despair? When you’ve experienced loss? When you’re facing fear? It really is so good for the soul to consciously meditate on one or more of the names that are given to us for Christ in the Bible, and in doing so, to hold fast to His name. Doing so bolstered the faith and the resolve of these early believers at Pergamum. It was to this name, the name of Jesus Christ, that these believers were holding fast. Not their own names, not their family name, the name of their parents, not the name of the emperor, the provincial governor, not the name of any so-called god, but the name of Jesus Christ alone. And they receive their commendation here from Him.

The verse continues. It says verse 13 still, “and [you] did not deny My faith.” This means that they did not in any way deny or distort what it means to truly trust in Jesus Christ. They didn’t water down the gospel. They didn’t cheapen the faith. They didn’t turn it into some sort of man-glorifying edifice of religion. No, because they had heard an accurate gospel message and because they had responded to an accurate gospel message, they were now presenting an accurate gospel message to their unbelieving neighbors in this city. They were presenting the bad news of mankind’s sinful condition. They were proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and they were pleading with non-believers around them to repent and believe in His gospel. And as we are about to see, they paid the price, specifically, the price of persecution.

The words of our Lord continue in verse 13. He says, “even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.” So the church at Pergamum had been loyal to Christ. They’ve openly witnessed to their faith in Christ and they were being persecuted for it. Christ then specifically commended one of the Christians in this city, Antipas, who we’re told died for holding to the truth about Christ and His Gospel. We don’t know anything else about this person, this man Antipas, other than what is revealed about Him here in Revelation 2:13 for all time. He could have been the pastor of the church at Pergamum. We don’t really know. What we know about Antipas is what we see in this text, which is that he was killed. And he was killed for being Christ’s witness. And not only that, He is referred to as here forever etched in the pages of Scripture as “My faithful one.”

There have been countless biographies that have been written about various Christian martyrs over the course of church history. You can think of “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” or individuals like Jan Huss or John Rogers or Polycarp or Perpetua. But can you imagine being this man, Antipas, who is commended forever on the pages of Scripture as “the faithful one” by Christ himself? That’s all we will ever know in this life about Antipas, is that Christ considered him to be his faithful one. I can’t imagine getting that direct level of affirmation. That it’s in Scripture for all time, that he is Christ’s faithful one. The point though is that Antipas was Christ’s faithful witness. And like Antipas, the people in Pergamum, his countrymen, his fellow people of that town, they were all faithful. The Christians were faithful in their witness for Christ. They were strong. They were refusing to buckle to imperial pressure. They were refusing to go along with the emperor cult. They were refusing to bow to evil.

But as bold and as firm as they were in refusing to bow down to the pagan rulers of the day and as real as the persecution and the suffering this church was facing, we are about to see that Pergamum was not fully an all-star church. They had by no means completely arrived.

Instead as we turn to verses 14 and 15, we’re going to see the tone of Christ’s letter here shift from commendation, now to criticism. Jesus is about to tell this church that though you hold fast to my name and though you are bold and though you suffer and though you have one in your church who I call my faithful witness, you have compromised. And now you are compromised. So as the tone of this letter shifts, look at verses 14 and 15. He says, “But I have a few things against you, that you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” So Jesus here is saying, as He does in several of these letters, “I started with the good news, Pergamum. But now it’s time to deliver the bad news.” And for this church the bad news is that you’ve compromised with the world by allowing false teaching to creep into your church, namely, verse 14, “the teaching of Balaam,” and verse 15, “the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” Christ we are about to see had a real bone to pick with both groups of false teachers and we’re about to see why.

Let’s start with the “teaching of Balaam,” verse 14. This account goes all the way back to the Old Testament account of Balaam and Balak in Numbers 22-24. If you’re a little rusty on the details of the Balaam/Balak account, that’s okay. I looked ahead, we’re going to study that account in our daily bible reading in about a month, end of April. So you’ll be all brushed up on Balaam and Balak in about a month.

In the meantime, let me give you some of the highlights, just to set the context. You’re free to turn over to Numbers 22-24. I’m not going to go line by line here. But when we come to the book of Numbers, the Israelites have come out of Egypt. They are in this period of wandering through the desert, the wilderness, and that is going, of course, going to take them 40 years before they enter fully the Promised Land. In context, in this Numbers 22-24 setting, they’ve just destroyed the Amorites, one of the various “-ite” groups. And they are looking to pass through the land of Moab. Well, the king of Moab is named Balak. And Balak was shaking in his sandals over the prospect of these Israelites passing through his land. He had heard the stories of the favor they’d had and the success they’d had, mowing over other “-ite” groups.

So Balak hires Balaam, this pagan prophet to curse the Israelites, so that they couldn’t cause harm to the people of Moab. But the plan to curse the Israelites doesn’t work. Every time Balaam attempts to curse the Israelites, instead God puts words of blessing in his mouth. So Balaam ends up completely messing it up and blessing the Israelites instead of cursing them. But that didn’t stop Balaam. Rather, because he was unable to curse the Israelites, instead he sought to corrupt them. And he did so by plotting to use Moabite women to lure the Israelites into the behavior of the whole godless culture that was around them.

Now I am going to turn you to Numbers if you aren’t there already, to Numbers 25. Numbers 25:1 says, “And Israel remained at Shittim,” and that would have been a city that was on the border of the Promised Land, “and the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. Indeed they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the anger of Yahweh burned against Israel.” Now you might be thinking that’s, ok, interesting. But I see that Israel stumbled into sin. I still don’t see anything about Balaam playing any part in Israel stumbling into sin.

Well, to get that part of the story, we have to go to Numbers 31. The scene here is Israel is now slaughtering the Midianites and in context, Midianite is synonymous with Moabite. Meaning, the Israelites were now slaughtering the very same people who had caused them to sin. But we see in Numbers 31 that Moses is angry that the Israelites didn’t finish the Job. By not finishing the job I mean they were only slaughtering the men and they weren’t slaughtering the women. They hadn’t followed through with God’s clear command.

Now look at Numbers 31:15, so here’s kind of picking up the story mid-thought, “So Moses said to them,” to his own people, “‘Have you spared all the women? Behold, these,” meaning the women, “these caused the sons of Israel, through the word of Balaam, to act unfaithfully against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of Yahweh.’”

So what this is showing us, we see that name Balaam there, right? What this is showing us is that apparently at some point, Balaam had gone behind the scenes and told the Moabites how they could get the Israelites to stumble, by falling into their same form of pagan practices. And Israel ultimately was led to worship idols and commit gross immorality as a result of Balaam’s wicked, backroom dealing ways.

Now bringing it back to Pergamum, back to Revelation, Revelation 2:14. In a way that was similar to Balaam leading Israel toward their fatal compromise with worldly ideologies. There apparently were certain false teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing, who now many centuries later were attempting to do the very same thing in this newly-established church in Pergamum. And what we know is what’s described here in verse 14. That they were encouraging Christians, those where were compared to Balam here, where food was being eaten that had been sacrificed to idols and there were these unspeakable acts of sexual immorality that were being performed. It’s all at the end of verse 14. They were being tempted or called to eat things sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. And the point here is Jesus takes great exception to those who were bringing in and promoting this teaching of Balaam. For the one who had died for these dear believers in this church, He demanded purity of worship from them and exclusivity of devotion from them. So this teaching of Balaam was a major problem.

But it’s not just the teaching of Balaam our Lord took exception to. No, there’s this second group of false teachers that had crept into this church. Look at verse 15. He says, “So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” Now we encountered the Nicolaitans a couple of sermons ago in Jesus’ letter to the church at Ephesus. And there, you might remember, Jesus actually commended the Ephesian believers because they hated “the deeds of the Nicolaitans which,” He said, “I also hate.” In Pergamum though, it was the exact opposite. The Nicolaitans received a totally different response in Pergamum than they did at Ephesus. In Pergamum, the Nicolaitans were tolerated. They were accepted by some it says, in the church.

Now to understand why that was so problematic, we need to understand what it was the Nicolaitans taught. Well, the Nicolaitans were teaching that man was made up of two parts. That he was made up of spirit and flesh. They were very dualistic in their anthropology. They split man right in two. And where that got problematic is they would say that Christ saved us or saved man in his spiritual essence, but that Christ’s saving work was divided. He didn’t save man in his flesh. Now the practical ramifications of that position were completely huge. Because it meant that while our spiritual half, the saved half was called to live righteously -- in our flesh, well, that part wasn’t the saved part anyway. So that part could go on living however it wanted. In other words, these were the very first, or some of the very first carnal Christians. Those who would justify their sinful, fleshly behaviors. In their case, carousing and drunkenness and fornication and all other forms of feeding the flesh. And they did so on the basis of their deeply-flawed theology.

Well, Christ who bought people their souls and their bodies with His own blood, had a problem with this. He was rightfully upset with the teachings of Balaam and the teachings of the Nicolaitans. He was rightfully upset that this church at Pergamum had allowed these teachings to infiltrate them. And He was rightfully upset with that theological downgrade that had started to happen in their midst. Because for the church at Pergamum to tolerate such teachings, it really was to make a mockery of Him and His sacrifice and His love for them and His desire for their purity.

By waving the white flag of tolerance -- that churches today are waving, and are being increasingly pressured to wave by compromising -- the church at Pergamum had allowed dangerous teachings to creep into their midst. They had fallen prey. They had compromised and more severely they had become compromised.

And that was a major problem. A problem that called, we are going to see, for repentance. And so next, verse 16, Christ we are going to see confronts the church. Verse 16, very first 2 words he says, “Therefore repent.” The church at Pergamum needed to repent. Repentance looks different in different situations, for them this meant eliminating from their midst those who had crept into their church and were now promoting false doctrine. And they needed to get back to preaching the truths of Christ and His cross. Or else, He says, He would come and judge them.

Look at the rest of verse 16. He says, “But if not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.” What’s the lesson there? The lesson I think is that you cannot say that you’re a church that is standing in opposition to Satan, while at the same time compromising with the world. That I think is a very key lesson that Christ is teaching here. It’s not both/and. It’s either/or. Christ Himself later in Matthew 12:30 would say “he who is not with Me is against me.” Which means that if a church is wayward in any way, Jesus was not going to hesitate to wield His sword to correct His church, to prune His church, to change His church, and if needed as we see from these historical churches, to pull the plug on His church. And that’s a tremendous warning to all churches of all time. To not tolerate falsehood in our midst. To steer clear of compromising with false teaching. To repent of any unsound theology or doctrine. Or else, to face Christ’s judgment by the removal of ones lampstand.

As we’re about to see, Jesus concludes His letter with this appeal and this challenge to the church, saying in verse 17, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” That idiom, “he who has an ear,” is a reference to true believers. To those who have the ability to hear. To those who will truly listen. To them, Jesus says, “Let him hear.” That’s a simple translation, “listen up!” And then there are these words that He wants them to hear. “To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’” To “overcome,” here’s that word, he who overcomes, that simply means to persevere, to endure to the end.

To the church at Pergamum, to overcome meant standing up to persecution. Staring down false teaching. Bracing oneself possibly for death. To the church at 1000 S. 84th Street, to overcome means to stand firm on truth and to stand firm on sound doctrine. To call sin, sin. To call sinners to repentance. To unashamedly preach the gospel of grace. To stand for the truth of God’s Word, all of it. And to do so even if it makes us unpopular. And even if it makes us stick out like a sore thumb. And even if it makes us the scum of the earth and the laughingstock of men. And even if we are scorned, even if we’re shunned, even if we’re called,
“Oh that’s that church that won’t compromise.” Or “That’s that church that’s intolerant. I just know they are intolerant. The pastor wears a tie. They are so intolerant.”

If we are willing to live this way, with this frame of mind and to persevere to the end, to overcome, Christ gives us these two promises. Verse 17. First He says, “I will give some of the hidden manna.” Manna, of course, is that reference to the food that God provided the Israelites during their years of wandering in the wilderness.

In fact, turn over with me to John 6, because I hear, I think, is what is being alluded to. Remember this is the glorified Christ writing after, many years after this, these words in John 6. So I think there is a real reference that He has in view here. John 6:30. “So they said to Him, ‘What then do You do for a sign so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly,’ I say to you, ‘Moses has not given you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, always give us this bread.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.’”

What this text, I think, does to the hidden manna illusion here in verse 17 of Revelation 2, the hidden manna reference, this is referring to Jesus Christ Himself. The Bread of Life is the hidden manna mentioned here in Revelation 2:17. In other words, those who overcome, or as other translations put it, those who conquer, they will ultimately be rewarded with Jesus Christ Himself. They will enjoy an eternity of fellowship with the One who saved them. Which, when you really think about it, is there anything more we could ever ask or want? That’s it. Worshipping our Savior in glory forever and ever and ever, for trillions and trillions and trillions of years, nothing sounds better than that to me.

His letter to the church at Pergamum then ends with these words, at the end of verse 17. He then says, “and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” This is really neat. What’s in view here is an athletic contest. See, in the first century a white stone would be given to an athlete who won the race, and that white stone was his admission ticket you could say, to go into the victory banquet. And oftentimes, his name would be chiseled in that white stone. So carrying that idea, that visual, over to this scene here to the church at Pergamum, this white stone is referring to the fact that for true followers of Christ, to those who are overcomers, those who are conquerors, they will eventually be given entrance into an eternal victory celebration in heaven, once they cross the finish line into glory. Like the tree of life that Jesus mentions in that letter to the church at Ephesus, like the crown of life that he mentions in His letter to the church at Smyrna -- the white stone is being offered as a reward to those who persevere, to those who endure to the end.

And then there’s that reference, everybody has a question about this one, to the new name. And the new name will be written on that “stone which no one knows, but he who receives it.” What’s the new name? What’s my name going to be in glory? I don’t know. But I take this the way it reads, that every one of us is going to get a new name. We will receive a new name as we pass into eternal glory. It will be a personal name. It will be a special name. It will be a name that reflects God’s special adoptive love for every single one of us individually. It will be a name, I believe, that describes the newness of our character and a name that we won’t know, won’t be revealed until it’s his design and His purpose to give it to us. Encouraging.

You know, I don’t come from a family of many believers. But I know that many of you have loved ones who loved Christ, who are now in glory, who have since gone to be with the Lord. And if that describes you, if you have that loved one who is now in the presence of Jesus, aren’t these comforting words? To think of your grandmother or your grandfather, or your mother or your father, or your brother or your sister, or your son or your daughter, receiving that white stone with their new name etched on it, granting them entry into this victory celebration in heaven. I can tell you one thing. They certainly don’t miss it here. That loved one. But it makes us each yearn for glory to be with them there does it not?

Well, we started this evening with that very lengthy, even by my standards, introduction related to Charles Spurgeon, and his stand on compromise in the midst of the Downgrade Controversy. I’m going to read you just a few of his closing words and his prayer from that sermon he gave on February 5, 1888.

He said this, “As for me, I must hold the old gospel. I can do no other. God helping me, I will endure the consequences of what men think obstinacy. Look you, sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to his truth to-day. We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, may[be] our children and our children’s children will go that way. But if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to his Word. I charge you, not only by your ancestry, but by your posterity, that you seek to win the commendation of your Master, that though you dwell where Satan’s seat is, you yet hold fast his name, and do not deny his faith.” He’s alluding to our letter. “God grant us faithfulness, for the sake of the souls around us! How is the world to be saved if the church is false to her Lord? How are we to lift the masses if our fulcrum is removed? If our gospel is uncertain, what remains but increasing misery and despair? Stand fast, my beloved, in the name of God! I, your brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the truth. Quit yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

See, what Spurgeon’s stance in that 1888 sermon teaches us, and on an infinitely greater level, the Lord’s letter to the church at Pergamum teaches us, is that we do not need to, and we will not, bend to anyone’s wishes that we become more tolerant for the sake of tolerance. Or that we compromise for the sake of compromise. We do not need to do any of that. But instead we need to heed the warnings at the same time that were given to the church at Ephesus. And we not become that church that devolves into loveless orthodoxy. But that doesn’t mean that we give up our orthodoxy just to be more loving. No, as Warren Wiersbe once said, “Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”

So as a church, let’s strive earnestly to fall not into either ditch of loveless brutality or truthless hypocrisy. Instead, may we be committed to diligently upholding God’s Word, passionately proclaiming the hope that is found only in Jesus Christ, refusing to give in where others are compromising, but at the same time, living credibly in light of the truths to which we hold, spurring on our brothers and sisters in the Lord, in love for them, to do the same. Carrying other’s burdens, whether physically or in prayer, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep, being quick to hear, being quick to overlook offenses, having a hair-trigger when it comes to forgiveness of our brothers and sisters in Christ. With the Lord’s help and through our prayers, we’ll be that church. A church that seeks earnestly to seek that right balance of truth and love. Not just in this generation, but for generations to come.

Let’s pray. Father, thank You for the beauty and the truth of Your Word. Thank You for its sufficiency. Thank You for its clarity. Thank You for its timelessness. Thank You that we can draw from a letter that the Lord of glory wrote to a church, sent to a church, some 2000 years ago. We can see ourselves through that letter. We can learn lessons, positive or negative through this letter. May we heed the warning. The warning against compromise. May we be a church that stands firm on the truth. It has done so for all these decades before and we praise You God for the faithfulness of this church for many, many years. But every single day we need to wake up and resolve to honor You and resolve to honor Your Word and resolve to withstand temptations to compromise and to be tolerant for the sake of tolerance, the buzz word of the world today. Help us to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who we have been saved by, by standing firm and faithfully on His Word. Help us not to be swayed by the changing and shifting winds of the culture, but to stand firmly on the truth of the word. Help us to live out the truth of the Word so it’s not just empty head knowledge, but is heart application. It’s every aspect of our lives, from what we do here in the church, to what we do in our home, to the workplace, to the community we live in. Help us to be faithful ambassadors of Christ. Faithful stewards of the truth of the Word in every sphere of life You place us in. God, thank You for a wonderful day of worship. Thank You for these dear people who love You, who love the truth and who love to see sinners saved. Thank You for Your mercy and Your grace. May we not fritter it away. May we not take it for granted. May we instead live in light of it and bring glory to Your name. In Jesus name we pray these things, amen.