Revelation 2:12-17

Mark Smith preaching from Revelation 2:12-17

Connect with us here:

Website: citychurchdublin.ie

Facebook: facebook.com/CityChurchDublin

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

All right, so we're going to read from the book of Revelation, chapter 2. I'm reading from the English Standard Version, and we'll start from verse 12. And to the angel of the church of Pemagum write, the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolateans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. He will as an air, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manner, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. This is the word of the Lord. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Welcome to you to join us while we're singing. My name is Mark. I'm one of the uh leaders here at City Church. And if you could turn up that passage that Foyen uh read for us from Revelation chapter 2, uh Jesus' letter to the church at Pergamum, which is in uh modern-day Turkey, as indeed all of the uh the churches of the book of Revelation are. So we're actually we're along here, we're in week three, so we're moving along. You might have picked up now that each of the images represents one of the promises that uh that Jesus gives. And so he talks about hidden mana in a little while, sort of a little symbol for for bread there. So that's where we where we are and uh where we are, where we're going. For those of us who are uh who are Christians, although I think probably those who don't identify as followers of Jesus feel this tension as well, um, there are uh two battles that uh that we are in. There are two battles in the Christian life. So if you're a follower of Jesus, you have engaged in these battles. Every church is in both of these battles. The first battle is uh the war without, the war outside. It is uh the battle with the the pressure to get along uh with opposition, with ridicule for being a follower of Jesus. Uh it happens in our workplaces, in our schools, it happens in our homes with those who know us best, who uh they are not Christians and we are, and uh they ridicule us because they know us warts and all, and they say things like, oh, you call yourself a Christian and you say that and you've done that. The war without it's the exclusion that can come from friendship groups for being a follower of Jesus. It's the it's the sneering kind of side-eye of how could you be so stupid uh to worship a homeless guy that came back from the dead? And indeed, you would think we we have to deal with social awkwardness. That's how terrible our war is. Whereas some believers uh across our world today face persecution of a much more real and much more physical kind. You go on to something like uh Church in Chains and read about uh what is going on across the world just to see how people are engaging in that battle with opposition and persecution from the state and from other religious groups, uh and the list could go on. But there's also the battle within. That's the second battle, the battle inside of each one of us, where our fears, our longings, our old desires are pulling at us. When we become a Christian, it's almost like civil war is declared in our own hearts. And so we feel this internal tension of things that want to divert our attentions away from Jesus, things that beguile and captivate our attentions more than more than him and what he has called us to. So there's the temptation to just quietly soften, knock the rough edges off, compromise what we believe, to drift towards behaviors that dishonor ourselves and dishonor God, to silently surrender what we say we believe in order to justify how we act. Sometimes the battle without is so hard that it's just easier to give in to the battle with within. It's too enticing. The Christians in Pergamum were fighting two battles. And they were winning one and losing the other. They had survived persecution, they had not denied Jesus publicly, some had stayed faithful even to the point of death. This reference to this man, Antipas. But while they were winning the war on the outside, they were quietly losing the war on the inside. And Jesus writes this letter to them to identify that, not in order to shame them, but because he loves them too much to allow them to continue. So let's look at those two wars and then how Jesus responds. The first, he commends them, so he doesn't, he doesn't immediately pile in, all right, let me tell you all the things that I'm displeased about. Maybe that's your view of God. God just comes to tell you all the things that you've done wrong. Jesus actually begins with there's loads of stuff here, guys, that I think is really commendable. That's the the war without, the war outside. He begins by saying that, so he describes himself as the one who has a sharp two-edged sword. We'll come back to that image in a minute. He says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, yet you hold fast to my name. Where Satan's throne is. Pergamon was a city in the ancient world that was steeped in false idol worship. This reference to where Satan's throne is, probably is going in in one of three different directions, or Jesus is taking them in their totality. So the first is Pergamum was a major center for a thing called emperor worship. So the emperor in Rome had set himself up as a god and said, You must actually sacrifice to my name and honor me as though, well, because I am a god, right? And that was huge. And it was connected with kind of political life, economic life. You had to pay homage to the emperor, or else you were seen basically as somebody who was undermining the whole empire, somebody who might be involved in treason. Or you don't want to over uh you don't want to honor the emperor, you don't want to sacrifice the emperor as a god. Well, do you actually want to overthrow him in favor of this other king, Jesus? That's one possibility. Emperor worship. And one of the things that Satan really loves to do and wants to do is to elevate humanity and denigrate God. I don't know if anybody has ever seen uh the movie The Devil's Advocate, not recommending it. Uh, but there's a wonderful Al Pacino scene, and it's a very Al Pacino moment. Al Pacino plays Satan, which is a that's the right casting, I suppose. And uh there's a there's a moment right at the end where he reveals that actually he's a lawyer and he's the devil. Sorry for any lawyers in the room, um, and and he talks about um how for humanity is. He says in a very alpacino way, he says, I'm a fan of man, right? That's my best Al Pacino, okay? Um I'm a fan of man, because that that's what Satan does. He elevates humanity, he says, grasp, take the throne. God's only got it in for you. Emperor worship, the elevating of the human. Another possibility is that in Pergamum, there's a huge statue and altar to Zeus, the the chief of the Greek gods. Maybe that's the uh uh the Satan's throne. Um the third option, and this is maybe more obscure, though you have seen it, is that Pergamum was a uh had a huge Asclepian. What's that? An Asclepian is the symbol that you'll have seen outside of medical centers, particularly in North America, of the staff with the snakes winding around it. That's an Asclepian pole, right? And Asclepian was basically like a wellness center, okay? It was a large spa town, but it was connected up with idol worship. And because of the symbol of the snake, maybe that's where Jesus is going with Satan, that serpentine imagery. Whatever it is, Pergamon is a place that is steeped in false worship, in idolatry. And Jesus comes and says, You're living where Satan has his throne and you're doing so well there. It's not because Pergamon was uniquely evil, but because the whole city was in opposition to God in its religious life, in its political life, in its economic life, in its values, in its sexual ethics. All of it pulled against Christian faithfulness, Christian values, and how we believe that we should think about God and live in the world. This was the city where following Jesus meant living against the grain, swimming against the tide every single day in every arena of your life. And Jesus says, You're holding fast to my name. He commends them. You did not deny my faith, even when Antipas was killed. You stayed firm. So before Jesus confronts them, he comforts them. Do you see? I know, I know where you live. Saying that with, I know the pressure, I know the temptations, I know that it's exhausting to follow me in a city where it feels like everything is constantly pulling you away from Jesus and away from following him. I know the pressure to conform at work, Jesus says. I know the pressure just to keep your head down and just to get on. To stay silent in the classroom when the lecturer or professor is mocking belief in Jesus. He says, I know the pressure to slowly absorb the values of the world around you, because actually standing against it is costly. Some of you, many of you, I'm sure, know exactly those moments, those little crossroad moments. And Jesus commends them. Verse 13, you hold fast to my name. He did not deny the faith. They have kept loyalty to Jesus. They did not confess that the emperor was God instead of him. And it cost Antibus's life. This is not a weak church. This is not a nominal church. This is not a nominal Christianity. This church had the courage to stand up for what they believed in and what was right. Some churches just collapse when the culture disapproves of them. Some Christians just collapse when the culture disapproves of them, and Pergamon did not. But then it becomes one of the most unsettling turns in all of these letters. Jesus turns to them and says, But I have these things against you. The I know where you live stops being comforting and starts being intimidating, doesn't it? I know where you live is very different to I know where you live. Jesus says, I have a few things against you, and that is the war within, secondly. The Christians in Pergamum were resisting publicly, but drifting privately. How? Well, Jesus tells us, and it's a little bit obscure. So let's read it and then we'll we'll dig into what it means. Verse 14. But I have a few things against you. You have some there that hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols, and practice sexual immorality. Okay, so what? Who are these people? And what is Jesus talking about? He goes on to say in verse 15, so also you have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitians or the Nicolaitans. Jesus here is referencing a story from the Old Testament from the book of Numbers. From Numbers basically 22 through to Numbers 25 is a series of chapters on the story of Balaam and this king Balak, right? So Balak is the king of Moab, which is a place where God's people were not supposed to go, people who um God's people were not supposed to intermarry with. They were a threat to God's people. And God's people, the children of Israel, are wandering in the wilderness, and they've just won a great battle. They won a great battle against uh the uh the Amorites, and King Balak thinks, oh, hold on a second, we might be next. We're gonna need to take some action. So Balak finds this prophet, this uh false idolatrous prophet, a guy called Balaam. You might remember that Balaam, what animal did Balaam have? He had a donkey, right? And if you're if you're a child or childish, uh you might talk about Balaam's uh something else, um, which I'm not gonna put on the recording, right? See if I talk about Balaam's deriere. Um Balaam had a donkey, he was commissioned by by Balach the king to go and curse the Israelites. Go and stand over the hill, looking down on the camp, and pronounce a curse on the people of Israel, on the children of God. And he gets there and he can't do it. He pronounces a blessing instead. He's like, oh, okay. So he goes back and he says, Oh, I couldn't really do it. And Balak says, Go and try again. And he tries a couple of times, and there's an angel standing in the way of the donkey, and the donkey has to speak. It's wild, it's brilliant, right? But he cannot pronounce the curse. So Balaam has an idea at the end. Balaam says to Balach, you know what? Instead of trying to get our gods to, our false gods like Baal to rain down judgment on Israel, do you know what you could do? You could actually go a much more subtle way. Just send in some really handsome men and some really beautiful women into the camp in Israel and let nature take its course. And then their God is going to be so annoyed at them that he's gonna smite them. So rather than the really obvious curse, Balaam says, you know what, we could actually be much more insidious here. We could just slip on in and allow the rot to take place from within. Do you see? And what Jesus is saying is that's exactly what the teaching of this group, the Nicolaitans, were doing. It wasn't obvious kind of stop following Jesus, come and follow this over here. It was much more subtle. It was more, well, what's wrong with going to an idol feast? You know, you get a nice dinner, and you know, if there's a good time afterwards, I'm sure Jesus will understand. Like it's a really hard city to be involved in, and you know, we all have appetites, and how wrong could it be? So it's not obvious rejection. It's much more subtle. It's much more insidious, it's just a relaxing of obedience. You can you can have Jesus, you can have Jesus on a Sunday, you can have community group. But you know, there's other practices and other pressures and other pleasures. If Satan cannot destroy ye by force, he'll corrupt you into compromise and make you useless. People rarely say I reject Jesus. Not immediately anyway. That final statement of I'm walking away from Jesus has 10,000 little statements and decisions all the way back here before it. It starts by, well, I'm still a Christian. It's not really hurting anyone. What does it really matter anyway? Wasn't the Bible just it's just socially conditioned for its time? We've moved on. Everyone does it. What things cause us to make excuses the most? For the people in Pergamum, it was money and sex. And I think it's for the same for us today. Why do I say money and sex? Well, because all of the idolatry in Pergamum, the worship of the emperor, the worship of Zeus, going to the Spa, the Asclepian, it was all bound up with economics and pleasure. The food that was that you bought in the market had been offered to an idol. People wouldn't buy what you had produced unless you had offered some of it to the emperor or some other false god. You couldn't get a job unless you paid homage to the patron deity of that guild. So if you're like, oh, I want to be uh you know an engineer, well, you'd go to the uh to the uh to the engineering guild, and they had a patron deity, and you'd offer your sacrifice. You needed to engage in false worship in order to get along economically. Faithfulness to Jesus would cost you financially. So again, don't we say to ourselves? If I say something, I'm gonna be overlooked. I need to play the game here in order not to lose the opportunities on down the line. If I'm too visibly Christian, it might cost me in time. Or maybe it's not that. Maybe it's the more subtle and unbiblical way that we view our money and our possessions. You think, well, this is mine, I earned this. Or if I don't have this, I'll be less secure. I need this. Where are you tempted to just knock the rough edges off? Just to leave some of those convictions at the door because it just makes life just slightly easier. Notice that Jesus identifies that they've compromised both their beliefs and their actions. And those two things are connected. So he says, you hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. That's intellectual. They're teaching you something, right? So that's beliefs and acting, so practicing the worship of idols and sexual immorality. Those two things are connected. What you believe and how you act have a very strong connection. And do you know what tends to happen? What the heart desires, the mind justifies, and the hands carry out. Be very careful about twisting and excusing and excusing and justifying things in your mind, which is really what you want in your heart anyway. Jesus never said anything about it. This is okay. Everyone else is doing it. So as a consequence of this wrong belief, there are so there are those who said, Well, it actually doesn't really matter what you do with your body. It doesn't really matter what you do in private life. And goodness me, of the two things that are going to tempt and entice human beings, it's going to be money, it's going to be sex. Now God isn't against sex, he created it, he thinks that it's a good gift to be enjoyed in the right context. But sex becomes destructive when it stops being a gift and starts being a master. When it starts exerting a kind of lordly control over your life and your decision making. That displaces and relegates, even just to second place, our commitment to Jesus. Maybe not so that anyone would see, but deep down in the dark parts of our own hearts and behind closed doors, that's what's going on. You might have even stood up for the faith in public. Declared your allegiance to Jesus, resisted the snide remarks and the misunderstandings of friends and colleagues, but inside, you're losing the war within. And you know you are. You're justifying your behavior, you're pretending that you are fine and that everything else is fine when it's not. Do you deflect? When people ask questions that begin to get too close to actually what's going on in your heart, in your life. What compromises have you renamed as wisdom? That's a good one, isn't it? I just think it's the wisest course of action for me right now. Okay. Maybe it is. But maybe it's not. What sin if you stop fighting? Because you've learned to manage it. Pergamum thought that they were spiritually healthy because they had survived persecution. Jesus shows them that they can be courageous publicly and compromised privately. Like a castle with strong walls, able to resist an attack. But there's a rot in the foundation. And if you dig down, the whole thing's going to begin to crumble. Some Christians are incredibly alert to cultural opposition and are never happier than when they're fighting a culture war. But fast asleep when it comes to personal holiness. The enemies out there. That's our third point. Jesus, this is the war that Jesus rages. He comes to them and he says, You need to repent, guys. He offers a warning to these drifting Christians. Verse 16, therefore repent. If you do not, I will come to you soon and war against you with the sword of my mouth. Remember, we talked about repentance before, particularly in the letter to Ephesus, that repentance is a change of direction. That your life is headed in one direction because of the things that you think are true and the things that you want, you're headed in a particular direction. And if that direction is not honoring to Jesus, Jesus is saying, actually, I need you to turn around. You need to think differently about yourself, you need to think differently about me, and you need to head in a different direction. That's what repentance is. Repentance, we even think of this word and think that it means crawling over broken glass back to God. No, it's very simple. Stop thinking and acting one way. Turn around. And move in a different direction. In Pergamon, Rome carried the sword of justice and ensured justice. Here Jesus says, the true authority belongs to me. The emperor might think that he is a god, but he will find his way to the grave eventually. It comes from Jesus, and it comes, remarkably, from his word. The sword is in his mouth. It is as he speaks that he executes judgment. It is as he speaks that he exposes our hearts. And his judgment is true. His judgment is just and it is right. Jesus is not indifferent to the drift. He's not indifferent to the compromise in our lives or in the church. He confronts it. Why? Because he hates us? No. He confronts it as a mercy. He calls it out because he loves us in order to heal and to strengthen. You remember when we did the book of Proverbs last year? Looked at that proverb that says that the wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy. An enemy will come along and just blow smoke, tell you how great you are. You know, you're doing the right thing. Oh, you're so courageous. Look at all the things that you're doing. Whereas Jesus, because he loves you, like a good friend, will come along and say, I actually don't think this is good for you. I know that this isn't good for you. I'm exposing this, I'm calling this out in order that you might find healing. That you might know life in Jesus. His is the sword that makes the wounded whole. He speaks in order to wake us from the stupor of living in ways which ultimately harm ourselves, harm others, and dishonor him. If you belong to Jesus, he loves you too much to leave you in your sin. And so repentance for you maybe looks like confession, honesty with a friend or a pastor, accountability, changing how you act, changing how you use your money, changing how you use your body, asking for help, asking actually for true biblical wisdom. But Jesus does not stop there. He does not just apprehend us, he gives us three beautiful images as we end in order to strengthen us for the war without and the war within. And this is our fourth and final point. This is the spoils of war, as it were. What does Jesus promise to the one who overcomes, to the victor? He says, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to the one who conquers, to the one who is victorious. I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a stone with a new name written on it, on the stone, that no one knows except the one who receives it. There are three things that Jesus promises to give you to help you in the war. Three things are coming your way, Jesus says. He says, fix your eyes on these. They're coming. Here they are. Going to give you some of the hidden manna. This is Jesus saying, I am going to provide for you. I am going to provide for you. God had fed the children of Israel in the desert as they walked around with no food, dreaming about meat pots back in Egypt. He provides for them miraculously with the manna. And some of that manna is gathered up and hidden away in the very, in the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of the very presence of God. And Jesus is saying, I'm going to give you some of that. I know that it's costing you. I see that it's costing you. The people are overlooking you, the people are sneering at you. I will provide for you. I will give you some of the hidden manna. You do not need to eat the pagan food, Jesus says. I will nourish you, I will sustain you. The second thing that Jesus offers is a white stone. And this white stone is most likely a symbol of acceptance. It is likely that stones were, these white stones were given to people essentially as tickets granting their admission into the games. Into the gladiatorial arena, probably where Antipas was killed. And Jesus is saying, I'm going to admit you not into death, but into life. Come and be in my presence. I'm going to give you a white stone and nobody's going to take it away. You're going to be with me forever. It also may well be that the white stone was a memento and a symbol of acquittal. That if you were in a law case and you were declared innocent, the judge would give you a white stone as a sign that you are innocent. What a beautiful image for Jesus to come to you with all of your faults and failings and all of the ways that you're feeling convicted from these earlier verses. And for Jesus, because of who he is and what he's done, make Jesus number one, right? Because of who he is and what he's done, that he has taken your sin. And he hands you a white stone and he says, You are innocent. I quit you. Come into my presence. Or in the Aslepian, in the wellness spa, you say you had say you had like sciatic nerve pain, right? Okay. Some of them gonna be 40 in a month, right? So sciatic nerve pain is in my future, okay? Um, and say I went to the went to the uh the hot water in the spa and it got it better. Do you know what it do you know what you get? You would get like a kind of a stone-carved leg on a white stone to show that it had been made better. And so the white stone becomes the symbol of acquittal, the symbol of acceptance, and the symbol of healing. Because Jesus knows that your heart is pulled in two directions. Jesus knows that there are desires and shames and guilt that you carry. And he says, I am going to acquit you, but I'm gonna do more than that. I'm gonna heal you, and I'm gonna draw you into my presence. Isn't that beautiful? That's the white stone. Whatever the precise meaning, he is saying, You feel excluded now? Christ Himself welcomes you. He will take your sin, he will vindicate you in the end, he will heal you and welcome you into his presence forever. You need that, you need to know that that's coming. And the final thing that he offers is a new name, a new identity, a name that only you and he know. Connotations of both being known and being transformed. You know, when God renames people in the Bible, it's a sign that their old life is gone and that the new life has begun. Jacob and Israel. Jacob meaning trickster, uh, constantly conning his brother and his uncle and everybody else. And then he is transformed that night as he wrestles with God. And that's what Israel means. He who wrestles with God. God will give you a new identity, a transformed identity. Isaiah saw this and prophesied about it when he wrote, The nations shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give you. What a beautiful thing! That you will walk into his presence, that he will satisfy the longings and desires and needs of your hearts, and he will speak over you a new name, a new identity, that your old life is past, that the shame that you have carried is dealt with, that there is only newness of life for eternity lying before you. Taken together, all of these promises speak of sustaining, of belonging, of transformation and healing and forgiveness. The world says, compromise so that you can belong. Jesus says, You belong to me by grace. Every Christian fights two wars, the war without and the war within. Pergamon was winning one and losing the other. The final appeal. He says, Some of you are standing firm publicly and quietly surrendering privately. Jesus does not expose that to shame you, he exposes that to heal you. These promises are not for the perfect, they are not for the sinless. The ones who overcome are the ones who repent, who know their need of grace, and delight in the welcome that Jesus offers. May we together as a community be those who fight with all of the strength that He supplies by the power of His Holy Spirit for the war without and the war within. Let's pray. Father, may we know your grace in the battle. Help us to stand for you in public and in private. Help us to know the sustaining, nourishing, transforming, healing, forgiving grace of Jesus. And may we be a community where grace and honesty, help and wisdom and accountability flow like mighty rivers amongst us. That we might honor you in what is seen and in what is unseen. We pray these things in your holy nymph. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.