Revelation 2:12-17, Feasting on the Word of Christ
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Who are you in your truest self? Most people in our world do not know. What would that truest self find most satisfying? Because most people do not know the answer to the first question, they run after anything. You were made to be satisfied with the word of Jesus Christ. Our passage explains that.
Don’t Spoil Your Appetite
Don’t Spoil Your Appetite
You dwell in Satan’s home town. Satan dwells in Pergamum. What does this mean? Pergamum was home to at least six temples to Greek and Roman deities. Demeter, Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, Asclepius, and don’t forget the temple to Emperor Trajan, on the highest point of the acropolis. The acropolis also contained the temple to the founding kings of Pergamum, the royal palace, an army barracks, a hospital, a library, and a theater. Every important public building was up on the highest point in the city. Satan had the perfect ploy. One stop every week would allow you total fulfillment, civic duty, religion, healing, education, culture, and security. This was satan’s stronghold. He was after people, body and soul.
Satan promised the best, total wellness, to those who participated in this lifestyle. Who wouldn’t want that. Just like today when people pay big money to have the latest and best health treatments and feast on the most satisfying food and drink, the acropolis at Pergamum offered two critical features.
The first was the Asclepion. This was the center of worship for the god Asclepius. But it was also a hospital. Asclepius is the god of healing. His symbol, the serpent on the rod, is used today as a symbol for healthcare and healing. All of that symbolism is important. Just as a serpent sheds its skin and takes on a “new life”, when you came to the Asclepion and washed in the sacred waters, you could shed your disease and receive new life too. And when you were healed, the custom was to inscribe the disease from which you had been healed and your name on a marble block, a white stone. You were free to choose a new name symbolizing your renewed destiny.
The added feature was, just as in any of the other temples, the opportunity to feast in the presence of the god you worshipped. These feasts were religious opportunities to ask a god for something or thank the god for their answer. But they were also the place to be seen by your fellow citizens.
So, this was the situation facing Christians in first century Pergamum. Their whole lifestyle, their wellness, their status, their patriotic allegiance were all centered around pagan worship of false gods. When they came to believe that Jesus is the true Lord and Savior, this was a total life change. Their faith in Jesus was an allegiance that would be tested by daily life.
And in some ways, the Pergamum Christians were passing test. Jesus commends them.
“‘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.
They dwell where Satan dwells. But they hold fast the name of Jesus. They are bearing witness to their faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Lord. Even when one of their own church members, Antipas, was killed for his faith in Jesus, they did not deny their faith in Jesus. They are true believers and unashamed. The “hold fast” the name of Jesus. That word means to hold onto something with all your strength, “hold strongly.”
But they have a mixed faith. But they hold something else just as strongly.
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.
Idolatry linked to sexual immorality is a stumbling block. Jesus uses the same root word to describe the way some people hold strongly to the teaching of Balaam. What does that mean? That’s a long story from the Old Testament book of numbers. But to keep it short, Balaam was a prophet of Yahweh. But Balaam mixed his work for God in with work for others, for the right price. King Balak was trying to find a way to defeat Israel, so he hired Balaam to curse Israel so that they would lose Yahweh’s favor. But God did not allow a curse to come from Balaam’s mouth. He could only bless Israel.
So Balaam devised another plan. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Instead of trying to make war with Israel, what if you made them your best friends. Get their people married into the families of your people, and they won’t be a problem any more.
So, instead of sending their warriors, they sent the beautiful leading women of their kingdom to the leading men of Israel to invite them to a feast. The only catch was that it was a feast to the god Ba’al. But no matter, we worship Yahweh in our hearts, we’re only offering Ba’al our bellies. But beautiful women and good food had a strong hold on them. So many were won over, God sent a plague upon Israel to break that grip.
The plague only ended when Phineas the priest followed a prince of Israel who had taken a princess from Moab into his tent and drove a spear through them both. Very graphic symbolism. We don’t mix the worship of God with the worship of false gods, no matter how attractive the packaging. It will only bring disease. The kind of disease that can’t be shed. It must be destroyed.
I met a woman once who said, “Jesus will always be my first love. But I’ve really found more fulfillment in Hinduism.” There’s other people that worship with the church on Sunday but go about doing business with the same shady practices as the other people in their industry. You have to compete somehow, even if it means a little nod to the idols Greed and Dishonesty.
There are kids who call themselves Christians because their family goes to church. But when you listen to them in the halls at school, the language and attitude coming out of their mouth sound much more like the corrupt talk of the world. Because you have to fit in, even if it means partaking in the offerings to the false gods Popularity and Gossip. We could go on and on. Satan has always been using the same tricks. And sometimes the ways of the world work. Sometimes they work more efficiently in this world than the ways of Jesus, whose ways always take time to bear fruit.
Whole churches can grow because of clever marketing, strategic growth plans, and professionally produced Sunday services. The pastor, who is really just a gifted preacher waits in the green room until his entrance on the stage every week. And he is unknown to anyone, and how many times have we seen his idolatry turn into sexual immorality?
(And I am not immune to this temptation.)
The Nicolaitans taught this,
So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
that you could worship Jesus on Sunday, profess His name in public even, but an appearance at the feast to Dionysus or at the Asclepion wouldn’t hurt. No reason to turn people off from your message unnecessarily. And some people were holding strongly to their teaching.
Financial success and popularity might seem fulfilling, but they are idols and when indulged, will spoil your appetite for the feast Jesus has for us in His word. By the way, there is a difference between partaking in the aspects of our culture that reflect the common grace of God in our world and augment the gospel. But just like for the first century Christians, there is a limit.
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
The engine of our economy runs on sexual immorality and coveting, which is idolatry. None of us are immune. They promise fulfillment. But these are empty promises.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
The words of those who would say, indulge yourself a little bit. As long as your heart is for Jesus, a little something for yourself won’t change that. But those words are empty. Paul says he has found, more than just being unsatisfying, mixing the words of Jesus with the empty words of those who would accommodate idolatry and immorality brings destruction. A mixed life is disobedience.
Don’t Fight with Jesus, Feast On His Word
Don’t Fight with Jesus, Feast On His Word
Here’s the good news. Jesus is revealed to us here as
“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
That’s an image that comes from chapter 1. They symbolism is that His word is a powerful weapon with which He judges the nations. But what a terrifying thing if He has to use it in His own church.
Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
Do you want to be at war with the Eternal One whose word created stars a thousand times larger than our sun? Do you want Him to war against your church? Jesus’ word has power. His word can pierce us to our very core.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Jesus’ words cut deep. But He is performing surgery, to remove the disease of idolatry that would lead us into immorality and every other destructive consequence. We need the kind of healing the sacred waters of Asclepius could never give. Jesus doesn’t just deal with your behavior. His healing goes deep down to the level of desire and motive linked to our true identity. Only Jesus can tell you your true identity. Because He made you.
At my core, I am a little boy who wants to be loved for who I am. And because I don’t believe I can be loved for who I am, I make up false selves that go running to the doctors to be healed and I worship the idol of self to seek acceptance and satisfaction.
But when I let Jesus do His work, He can pierce those false selves, which hurts. But if I am listening, He also reveals in the depths of my soul who I truly am, a beloved child of God reconciled to Him in Christ.
give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
And He adds to the healing, nourishment.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna,
That heavenly bread that fell in the wilderness to nourish Isreal after the exodus was stored in the ark of the covenant alongside tablets of the commandments of God as a reminder to Isreal,
And he … fed you with manna, … that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
The manna behind the manna is the word of the Lord. My truest self is nourished, not by the morning news, or the writers of my favorite blog, or even by the world’s best preacher. No idol can compete with Jesus. He is my head who knows best what my soul needs. My truest self as a child of God is nourished as I feast on the word of Christ to me.
What is that? Ephesians 2:1–9 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Communion
Questions for Discussion
What are some feasts or celebrations that are most meaningful to you, and why?
What are some forms of idolatry in our society that satisfy the human longings for acceptance and healing?
What do we learn about Jesus in Revelation 2:12-17?
What does Jesus desire for His church, according to our passage?
What do we learn about ourselves in our passage?
Jesus’ word can both judge us and heal us or nourish us at the same time. Can you think of an example from your own life that you could share with the group?
Who speaks the word of Christ to us, according to verse 17? How does He do that? What are the best ways we can open our ears to hear Him?
How will you respond to the word of Christ through the Spirit this week?
Who is someone you can share this passage with this week?
