THE CHURCH OF PERGAMUM

THE COMPROMISING CHURCH LIVING IN 2 WORLDS

REVELATION 2:12-17

New Living Translation Chapter 2

The Message to the Church in Pergamum

12 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword:

13 “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city.

14 “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. 15 In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. 16 Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

17 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

In the last study on the Church of Smyrna attacks and suffering appeared to be Devils game plan was to oppress and to crush and destroy Jesus Church BUT we saw that it did not work the church thrived and increased.

Now we look at the Church of Pergamum and we see Satan trying a different game plan. Instead of merely trying to crush the church, Satan launched a new plan to join the church.

In Pergamum and later in Thyatira, we see the servants of Satan beginning to infiltrate the ranks of the church.

Jesus had predicted this very tactic in His parable of the wheat and weeds: in

New Living Translation Chapter 13

Parable of the Wheat and Weeds

24 Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.

27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’

28 “ ‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.

“ ‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.

29 “ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’ ”

Initially, those little thistle sprouts looked just like wheat sprouts. You Couldn’t really tell the deference. In the same way, the Devil recognizes that he needs to infiltrate the church with false teaching and false believers. Satan uses people to use his version of Christian teachings and tries to confuse people with fakes, imitations and substitutes.

So are there fake Christians? Yes, there are. But it is no necessarily my job to figure out who the fakes are; it’s my responsibility to make sure I’m not one of them.

“WHERE SATAN HAS HIS THRONE”

New Living Translation Chapter 2

13 “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city.

In

New Living Translation Chapter 2

13 “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city.

At this time Pergamum was the capital and cultural center of Asia. The city was built on a rocky hill with a view of the Mediterranean. It was renowned for it’s magnificent library that housed two hundred thousands rolls of parchment. It was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

......plan to use compromise to try and destroy the Church

There were all kinds of god’s worshipped in Pergamum, including Dionysus and the snake god Asclepius also known as “the savior god.” People would come to the snake shrine from around the world to worship this god and seek healing for their illnesses. in the temple itself, nonvenomous snakes would slither around the floor and crawl all over the people who were lying on the there. If you were touch by a snake, it was believed, you might be healed from what it was that troubled you. What a CREEPY place that would have been! It sounds like an Indiana Jones movie.

Besides these, there was also a great temple erected for the worship of Caesar Augustus,. Augustus means :of the gods,” and by this time the Caesars were not only accepted worship, they were demanding it.

Jesus stated He knew they were in the city where Satan had his throne in

Pergamum, then was a very dark place. And there was the church of Jesus Christ right in the middle of it.

LET’S CHECK OUT THE WAY OF COMPROMISE

In Jesus tell the church of Pergamum

New Living Translation Chapter 2

14 “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. 15 In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. 16 Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

So who were the Nicolaitans? There founder was Nicholas, possibly one of the seven who had been chosen to be a deacon in the early church, along with Stephen. But apparently Nicholas fell away from the faith, and began to lead people astray, Some have speculated that Nicholas was telling people they could offer sacrifices in the pagan temple and engage in acts of immorality and still be Christian. And because he was one of the original church deacons of the church of Jerusalem, his opinion carried a lot of weight, and people were willing to follow him, As a result, a movement grew around him, and these followers of Nicholas became known and the Nicolaitians.

The basic Nicolaitan philosophy was endangering the church of Pergamum is still a danger to us today. It is the Idea that we can engage in sin, live pretty much as we please, and still be a Christian. “After all,” this philosophy says, “God will understand. Your sins are forgiven and your position is Christ is secure.”

BUT what is the biblical response to this view? says,

New Living Translation Chapter 6

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

This doctrine if the Nicolaitans is sometimes referred to as antinomianism ( view that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law). It’s the philosophy of the Christian liberty gone amuck. Maybe we we've heard words like these from the none believer or a person calling themselves a believer friends: “Hey, do have to so intense all the time? Does it always have to be the Bible this and the Bible that? Can you kick back, have a few drinks, have a little fun for a change? Okay, so you mess around sexually with that girl or that guy. So what? You’re still a Christian, and God still loves you.

The essence of what the Nicolaitans taught, What harm is a little idolatry or a little immorality? You’re not going all in you’re just playing around a little.

BUT this is how compromise always works. Those little things always turn into big things. As Solomon ounce put it, the littlefox in the vineyard destroy the grapes. We may tell ourselves. “I can handle this. What’s it going to hurt? It’s just a ;little drink. A little flirtation. A little taste of this or that. and all kinds of other things of this world. Where’s the harm?

The harm is that we can’t handle “a little sin” None of us can. It always will, inevitable, lead to more and more.

No one ever suddenly falls away from the faith. It’s the little things: the little compromises, the little fantasies, the little cutting of corners, and the little rationalizations that eventually send a man or a woman over the edge. And then they lose control and says, “I don’t know how this happened to me!”

A perfect example of this was Sampson, he kept playing around and flirty with things he shouldn't had and then he didn't even realize that the Spirit of God had left him.

THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM

We see the Nicoliatians problem was: they were trying to live in two worlds. What then, is the “doctrine of Balaam”? Actually, it is very similar.

You may remember the story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24

Pergamum

LIVING IN 2 WORLDS

Pergamum