Keeping a Pure Gospel.

Revelation: All Things New • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

0 ratings

· 40 views

Theme: Jesus speaks against mixing other religions with the Gospel. Purpose: To see ways we let popular beliefs creep into the Gospel. Gospel: Jesus wants a pure Gospel. Mission: Grow in Faith in Jesus, while diminishing faith in other beliefs.

Notes

Transcript

Revelation 2:12–17 NIV

“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.

Introduction: Traveling with the letter - Patmos - Ephesus - Smyrna - now pergamum. Smyrna just encouragement in persecution, but Ephesus was a picture of all truth, but no love. What would Jesus say to a Church that is about Love/Grace, but is struggling with the Truth?

It’s not that Pergamum lacks the truth as....

Jesus speaks up for those who speak up for Him.

- Reminder of Revelation 1:16 - Double-Edged Sword - Jesus does spiritual warfare with his words - It reminds us also of the Armor of God in Ephesians 6 - The Sword of Truth or.... “Jesus Speaks” on July 4, 2021.

Hebrews 4:12 LEB

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the reflections and thoughts of the heart.

- Words Matter, but Jesus’ words are so precise, so truthful, and cuts to the heart of things - on point. - This both heals and destroys evil. - We see Jesus doing this in during His life.

The Pergamum Church was speaking up for Jesus, or remaining true to his name in the face of hostile territory to the Christian message.

In verse 13 the literal sense of "Your Faith in Me" is "The Faith of me." What is happening here? Likely the meaning is that what has not been denied is the Gospel message of Jesus.

Yet, they do this facing an onslought of pagan pressure by their fellow pergamites. - “Where Satan lives.” What is John referring to.

The Altar of Zeus in Pergamum - The Altar of Zeus has been restructured at a Museum in Berlin - Depicts that battle of gods against the giants. - This is a front runner to the throne of Satan. - In Judaism behind every Idol is a demon, and Zeus was the chief of the gods or in Jewish thinking the chief of the demons.

Temple of Athena

Theater of Pergamum - at the foot of it is the Temple of Dionysus - Connection of Dionysus and Theatre.

Temple of Hera

Temple of Demeter

Temple of Aschlepas - The god of healing - and whose symbol was a serpant/dragon (oh, does this sound familiar in your Revelation knowledge?)

Temple of Rome and Augustus in Pergamum. - Pergamum was the first city to win the "Honor" Neochorus or in English, "Temple Warden." They kept this title as the only city for 50 years so until 20 AD, when Smyrna also became a Neochorus. Pergamum's identity was bound by this title. They were proud to be the first Neochorus.

They gained a second Neohorate for erecting a temple to Trajan (a few years after Revelation was written), which they thought made them the highest regarded city for their worship of the Emperors. For Trajan their is an inscription at his temple saying, "To the Lord of Heaven and Earth." - Can you imagine the challenge to the Church.

People are being killed in Pergamum for remaining faithful to Jesus over and against pagan worship and Emperor Worship. - Antipas.

Jesus speaks up for people who remain faithful, He vindicates them with his word by giving them a New Name.

The Story of my nicknames in Baseball

The name may not be necessarily new, but a name of original and of a kind not seen before.

The new name seems to be a referrence to the new Israel in Isaiah 62 and 65. It is a referrence to the love God has had for his people, their restoration, but also a recognition of where they have come from names like forsaken, desolate, for Pergamum, perhaps persecuted, Atheist, and for us Haters, Hated, etc...

Isaiah 65:15 refers to God's judgment on Israel, and those who turned from God's way and covenant he says will leave a name that is a curse (so perhaps like the Nicolatians), whom the Lord will kill, but those who persevere, conquer he will give another name.

The idea of conquering is to win a victory in a military conflict, but notice here that winning that conquest is not to fight physical wars, but to remain faithful to Jesus in the midst of conflict and teachings that would lead people astray.

Application Point: We are victorious when we remain faithful to Jesus and the Gospel.

- With a group of churches - A well meaning pastor says in our group, “We are focusing too much on Doctrine, we need to focus on Jesus who is a person.” I agreed, but I challenged him, “But we also need to make sure we are talking about the same Jesus, because it is too easy to make a Jesus out of our own liking. We do need to make sure this is the Jesus who came in the flesh, lived and brought the foretaste of his kingdom, died for our sins, physically rose from the dead, ascended to rule heaven and earth, sends the Holy Spirit to send his Church to “Baptize and Teach other”, until he comes again to restore all things. We need to make sure we are relating to and focusing on that Jesus.”

And this is where some from Pergamum were doing...

Jesus speaks against mixing other beliefs with the Gospel.

Need to tell the story of Balaam -

Numbers 25:1 - When Israel dwelled in Shittim, the people began to prostitute themselves with the daughters of Moab. 2 And they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and worshiped their gods. 3 So Israel was joined together to Baal Peor, and ⌊Yahweh became angry⌋ with Israel.

Numbers 31:16 Behold, these women ⌊caused⌋ the ⌊Israelites⌋, by the word of Balaam, to be in apostasy against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, so that the plague was among the community of Yahweh.

Nicolatans - John is saying the Nicolatans are doing something similar. Christian prophets in Pergamum and Thyatira were suggesting that Christians could participate outwardly in imperial cult and other forms of idol worship (see Rev 2:12-29). They were invited to Religious parties that involved idol food and temple prostitution. Don’t know exactly, but speculating that, “Hey, you are free in Christ, Idols are just statues, so you can do this and be a believer in Christ as well, so you aren’t excluded from the benefits of Roman Society.”

List ways that our culture is doing this today? The worship of sex itself (ie. the sexual revolution).

Here we have the word sexual immorality to refer to the passages in Leviticus that refer to the sexual ethic that is outside the boundaries given by God.

Worship reveals one’s allegiance, and, in the cosmic war between God and Satan, there is no room for trying to form dual allegiances. There were indeed advantages to participating in emperor worship. It was difficult to get a piece of the Roman pie without doing so (Rev 13:16-17). It would have been much safer for Christians to go with the flow. Worship—loyalty to the Roman state or to the kingdom of God—was indeed a life-or-death issue, Dr. David Desilva

Application Point: As a church we are called to strip ourselves of false mixtures.

Two false mixtures that relate to Pergamum and the Church in the U.S.A.

Sexual Revolution ideas - You are not fully human unless you fulfill yourself sexually - Adultery, pre-marital sex, pornography, abuse, the sex-trade, same-sex sex. Those are the ideals of the Idolatry of the Sexual Revolution, and there are some in the church who have said, we can have both this idol, and Jesus. There is a difference in “I know this is not Gods will, I struggle with it, Lord make my desire greater for you than these things.” This is true grace humbly recognizing we are sinners in need of a Savior. That is different then “Oh, these things are acceptable by Jesus now. Jesus wants us to be our true selves and express that.” Well our true selves are sinful, we all have issues, and we need Jesus so that we are not ruled by them. We don’t need the Sexual revolution to rule us.

Worship of Country

Why I am a bit queezy on patriotic days and worship. I feel people don’t understand this, they think I don’t want to honor our country by not displaying the flags on the beam or in the sanctuary - It’s because I don’t want to worship the USA, I want to worship Jesus.

Loving Country is good - born here, people here that God wants us to love, we are called to love our country with God’s love, and obey its laws. Countries according to scripture have been appointed by God as are leaders, to pray for the peace of our country, to serve our country for the common good. This all good, honorable, and what God wants of us as Christians, but not Worship it. Those lines are difficult to maintain, but I for one don’t want our Church and myself to be called on the carpet by our true Lord who alone should be worshipped, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So, Love, serve, honor, bless, loyal, yes, but Worship and put allegience to above Jesus, No.

What’s the result?

The Results of a Love-Based, Truth Compromising Church.

Comparison to Ephesian Church:

All Truth, But lost its love. In their Truth they rooted out Nicolatan teaching.

Here Pergamum, Is full of Love and Grace, but is allowing Truth to be compromized.

Ephesian church will cease to exist, whereas Pergamum, Jesus will wage verbal war against.

Jesus’ goal then for the Church is 100% Truth, 100% Love.

In what way is Jesus coming to the church quickly to the Pergamum Church, Is this spiritually or is he referring to His second coming.

The word for make war is Polemeso - Is this where we get the word Polemic from? Yes it is, In other words Jesus is coming to make war with His words in opposition to the Nicolaitans.

The implication here for the church is to purify its teaching, before Jesus does it for us.

By discipling each other

By challenging and disciplining each other.

By appealing to the Gospel and reforming ourselves to it, not the other way around.

The Promise:

Both Gordon Fee and John MacKinney see a connection between the Mannah, the stone, and the new name. This is over against the food sacrificed to idols theme that the Pergamum's were prone to. That the stone was an invitation stone that got you into a great banquet, and it had a name that only you and the host had so as to let you in, and that then there was the feast of Mannah of which has all of the O.T. imagry and Jesus as the bread of life imagry tied to it. This is a better feast than as John sees as the orgie feasts of the pagan religions.

Application Point: We grow in intimacy with Christ the more we reform our lives to His Gospel.