Faithful and Fearless

For ten straight years, the city of Troy stood unconquered. The Greek armies brought everything they had against those massive walls, and nothing worked. The frontal assault was a total failure. So, the Greeks packed up their tents and acted like they had given up, leaving a massive wooden horse outside the gates. The Trojans thought it was a trophy of victory and dragged it right into the center of the city. That night, Greek soldiers climbed out of the belly of that horse, opened the gates from the inside, and Troy burned to the ground. They didn’t fall to an army crashing through the gate; they fell because they rolled the enemy right into their own living room.

The hardest attacks to fight aren’t the ones coming at you head-on. You can see those coming. The most dangerous attacks are the ones that look harmless, feel comfortable, and ask for a little bit of tolerance.

That brings us to the next church on our list in Revelation: the church in Pergamum. Geographically, Pergamum was situated about 15 miles off the coast of the Aegean sea and roughly 55 miles north of Smyrna. They weren’t quite a port city, but they still had their share of booming commerce. Now, we talked last week about Smyrna being a sort of hot bed for Caesar worship. They had a temple built in honor of the Roman emperor and worshiped him as a God. But Pergamum makes Smyrna look like small potatoes. This was the very first city to build a temple for engaging in Caesar worship. So if you thought it was hard to be a Christian in Smyrna, it was tougher in Pergamum. The culture brought a massive frontal assault against these believers, but they didn't flinch. The danger wasn't the attack from the outside; it was the Trojan horse of compromise slipping through the inside. Let’s see what Jesus has to say to the church in Pergamum:

Revelation 2:12–17 NASB95

“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two-edged sword says this: ‘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, because 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 acts of immorality. ‘So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. ‘Therefore repent; or else 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.’

Again, we see a familiar structure. Jesus says something about himself, pointing to his power and authority. This time he is speaking of the sword that proceeds from his mouth, which obviously isn’t literal, but demonstrates that his words have power and authority.

This is followed by a commendation to the church for doing something well. These guys are living in a place where Satan’s throne is. Again, this does not mean that Satan himself is sitting on a throne in Pergamum, but that there is great hostility toward Christians. The hostile Jews in Smyrna were called a synagogue of Satan, but here is where Satan reigns. Pergamum was a very dark and hostile place, yet the believers there stayed strong. They stated strong even in the face of martyrdom, as seen in verse 13. A man named Antipas, not to be confused with Herod Antipas, who would have been dead for quite some time.

Every church in human history has been faced with temptation to move away from biblical orthodoxy for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes it is to save church attendance. Sometimes it is to sound more appealing to a non-church crowd. Sometimes it is to save ourselves from being ridiculed, and sometimes it is to save ourselves from being attacked.

But we must remember that Christianity is true. It is not a truth. It is the truth. Jesus is the ultimate truth.

It is the sacred duty of every Christian to stand against false teaching.

It is not the Pastor’s job. It is not the Sunday School teacher’s job. It is not the “professional’s” job. It is your job. How you go about doing that job is between you and Christ. He gives everyone a different platform. Do you know what yours is?

You can stand against false teaching by doing two things:

Ground yourself in truth.

The church in Pergamum planted their flag. In the city where Satan’s throne was, they chose to stand for Jesus. To hold fast is to seize something. It carries the idea that you are going to hold tightly and not let go. The church in Pergamum wasn’t compromising on some core doctrines. They were not going to declare Caesar as Lord or anyone else. They were grounded in the truth.

What is one thing you have in your home that you will never let go of? Don’t say your faith or Jesus. I’m talking something tangible. Your whole world could fall apart, but there is that one thing in your house, that no matter how bad things get, you will never sell or give away. Do you have that thing in mind? That is what it looks like to hold fast to something. You’re not letting go of that thing ever.

Do you have the same attitude toward your faith as your most sacred possession? Do you care enough about the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ that you invest serious time in grounding yourself in core truths? Do you know what you believe so well that you are not swayed by arguments that contradict scripture’s teaching? You don’t have to go to Bible college or get a fancy theology degree to be grounded in the truth. Nobody in Pergamum did. But what did they have? They brought the truth of Christian teaching into everything they did.

So often our faith is relegated to one hour once a week on Sunday morning. A byproduct of our increasing individualistic society is that has become the approach to discipleship in the church. We wonder why the world around us has changed the way it has but it should not be surprising when churches let discipleship become an individual exercise. We basically said, ‘We want you to show up for worship. We want you to show up for Sunday School. We want you to show up for Wednesday night Bible Study. We want you to show up for Sunday night church service also. But we are not going to require anything of you when you do.” So for a very long time, church has been largely a consumer product. Church has been like a soup kitchen, where the few people working the line have said to the masses, “We have soup. Come get some.” Then people stopped wanting soup and we thought, “Well, if we make better soup than the soup kitchen down the street, they will want to come back to our soup kitchen.” So we changed the recipe and people came back for a while. Then they stopped coming. Maybe they didn’t like the way one person poured the soup into their bowl. Maybe the soup was a little cold that day. Maybe somebody said something to the person receiving soup and it was never addressed.

I need to shift your focus. The church is not a soup kitchen. Jesus did not intend for his bride to have a few faithful people sweat their tails off to feed people soup all the time. He equipped his bride in such a way that yes, there are those who know how to make and serve soup. Yes, there are people who need to receive the soup. But if there is not a day in which the receiver of soup is not taken by the hand, and the person with the apron on doesn’t say, “Come here, let me show you how to make the soup” then the ministry dies.

Here’s what I want you to hear. Grounding yourself is not solely an individual exercise. It is communal. The church should not be a soup kitchen. It should be a potluck. In a potluck, everyone brings something to the table, and everyone gets to share in what is brought. What’s missing from a potluck table is what you have to offer.

The group of guys I have been meeting with have had expectations placed on them before every meeting. It hasn’t gone perfectly, but the general idea is that there is material to read, reflection questions to answer, and an expectation that each one will bring something to discuss. There is active participation in that environment. This helps ground you in the truth.

The secret to my marriage’s success is not rooted in me or Marci. It is rooted in the fact that there were two people who fiercely loved Jesus who were running in the same direction. God brought us together so we could run in the same direction together. The secret to Pergamum’s endurance was not that each individual was holding fast to Christ’s name. It was that they were doing that together.

Who are you running with? Do you need to get a group of people together so you can run the race together? Christianity is not a solo sport. You will stay grounded in the truth when you partner up with others.

Seek the strength that comes from Christ.

The church in Pergamum was guilty of one thing: there were some among them who held to the teaching of Balaam. If you know your Bible, Balaam was a prophet (not a prophet of God) in the book of Numbers. There is a story about him in chapters 22-24. Balak, the king of Moab (which would be Jordan today), wanted to hire Balaam to curse Israel to impede their progress toward the Promised Land. Balaam resisted until he finally went, and instead of placing a curse on Israel, he placed blessing. But in chapter 31, it is revealed that on the advice of Balaam, there were Israelites who engaged in improper sexual practices. The infractions committed involved eating meat sacrificed to idols and committing acts of immorality.

Now, what you need to understand is that both of these acts went together. Both of these acts done together were in service to the god that was the object of their worship. They are breaking the first commandment.

The repentance here is not just the repentance of the people committing the unbiblical acts. It is a call to repentance for the people who have tolerated such behavior. Sin cannot be tolerated in the church. It is a toxin that will eat us alive and sway people to abandon the faith. If there is a known sin, it must be lovingly dealt with or eradicated if there is no repentance.

Addressing sin among the church is a courageous act. You are judgmental and cruel if you tell someone that they are engaged in a sinful activity that threatens the unity and holiness of the church. There is a right way to go about it, and unfortunately the church doesn’t have a perfect track record. But to allow that which is unbiblical because we are scared of pushback is cowardice.

We must seek the strength that comes from Christ. We talked about this a few weeks ago, but a structure for addressing sin in the church is provided in Matthew 18:15-20. Let’s turn there for a moment.

Matthew 18:15–20 NASB95

“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. “But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Remember, repent in this letter implies that the church will cease to tolerate the false teaching that leads to false practices. The recipe for doing so is for the one who knows his brother is in sin musters the courage to have a conversation. If the one who is in sin refuses to listen, then he gets two or three others to go with him. If he still doesn’t listen, we bring the matter to the attention of the church.

But the most important part is in verse 20. We often quote this verse to remind ourselves that Christ is present when we gather. He is present on Sunday morning, he is present in our small group Bible studies, he is present in various fellowship gatherings, but the strength to address a brother and his sin comes not from us but from Christ himself.

It takes real courage to address the sin amongst the congregation. It might be tougher than standing against false teachings from outside the church. But for a church to maintain its health, as we discussed in the letter to the Ephesian church, we must be brave enough to have hard conversations, not because we enjoy discipline, but because we love Christ and want to protect what he paid his life for.

So what needs work this week? Have you drifted from grounding yourself in truth? Are you living on a spiritual island because your discipleship depends on you? Is it time to have a difficult conversation but you are terrified of doing so? Find the strength not from within yourself, but from Christ himself. You make room for what you value. So what needs to move to make room for what you value?